d
have help from the stronger sect (stronger arms I mean). And besides
the fish I spoze they ketch happiness and health.

Well, Josiah wuz rampant to go. He said he wanted to surprise the
crowd in the hotel and the hull of Well's Island with the fish he
would git, and then I spoze the idee of the dinner wuz drawin' him
onward. I brung up several arguments, such as the danger, fatigue,
etc., but he stood firm. But I had one weepon left that seldom failed,
and as a last resort I drawed that weepon, and he fell woonded to
once. Sez I, "Do you have any idee, Josiah Allen, how much it is goin'
to cost you?"

His linement fell. He hadn't thought on't. I see him silently draw a
boatman into a corner and interview him, and I hearn no more about a
fishin' picnic.

The very evenin' after this, Fate and Mr. Pomper gin me a chance to
carry out the plan I'd laid out heretofore. Josiah had stepped over to
the post office, and Faith had walked over with him at my request, for
she had a headache, and I told him to walk down to the wharf with her
and see if the cool air wouldn't do her good. So she had put a black
lace scarf over her pretty golden hair and went off with him.

Well, there wuz big doin's at the Tabernacle that night, and it wuz a
off night for music, and I found the parlor nearly deserted when I
walked in and sot down in my accustomed easy chair. And no sooner had
I sot down seemin'ly than Mr. Pomper's massive form emerged onto the
seen, and he drawed up a chair and sot down by my side.

Agreably to the plans I had laid down in my mind, I did not object to
the move. But though a picture of calmness on the outside, inwardly I
wuz callin' almost wildly on my powers of memory, tryin' to think jest
what Malviny had done, one of the immortal Children of the Abbey, when
Lord Mortimer approached her with his onlawful suit, and I tried also
to recall what the Mountain Mourner had done in like circumstances,
but before I had half done interviewin' them heroines in sperit my
mind wuz recalled into the onwelcome present by Mr. Pomper's voice in
my left ear:

"I asked you, Josiah Allen's wife," sez he, "to listen to me, for I
felt that you wuz the most proper person for me to state my feelings
to. Since you and your party have entered this house," sez he, "I have
had a great conflict goin' on between my mind and my heart."

"Ah indeed! have you?" sez I, liftin' my nose at a angle of from forty
to fifty degrees.

"Yes," sez