ne.

The house wuz a big square one with a large front yard with some
Pollard willers standin' in a row in front on't, through which the
wind come in melancholy sithes into the great front chamber at night
where Faith slept, or ruther lay. And the moon fallin' through the
willers made mournful reflections on the clean-painted floor, and I
spoze Faith looked at 'em and read her past in the white cold rays and
her future too.

She hired a man and his wife to live in part of the house, and she
herself lived on there, a life as cold and colorless as a nun's. But
there wuz them that said that she loved that young West to-day jest as
well as she did the day they parted, bein' one of the constant naters
that can't forgit; that she kep' his birthdays every year, but
sarahuptishously, and on the anniversary of the day she parted with
him, nobody ever see her from mornin' till night.

The tall Pollard willers wuz the only ones that could look down into
her chamber, and see how she looked, or what she wuz doin'. And they
never told, only jest murmured and sithed, and kinder took on about it
in their own way. But the next day, Faith always looked paler and
sweeter than ever, they said.

Well, I wuz glad enough to see Faith. I think a sight on her and she
of me, and we had a real good time. Josiah sez to me the day after
she come, "She is the flower of your family!"

And I told him I didn't know as I should put it in jest that way, and
he might jest as well be mejum, sez I, "You're quite apt to demean the
relation on my side, and if you take it into your head to praise one
of the females, you no need to go _too_ high."

"Well," he repeated, "she is the flower of the Smith race. Of course,"
sez he, glancin' at my liniment and then off towards the buttery full
of good vittles, "I always except _you_, Samantha, who I consider the
fairest flower that ever blowed out on the family tree of Smith."

Josiah is a man of excelent judgment. But to resoom backward, I had a
dretful good visit with Faith and enjoyed her bein' with us the best
that ever wuz. Instead of makin' work she helped, though I told her
not to. She would wipe and I would wash, and we would git through the
dishes in no time. She hunted round in my work basket and found some
nightcaps I'd begun and would finish 'em, put more work on 'em than I
should, for I slight my every day sheep's-head nightcaps. But she
trimmed 'em and cat-stitched 'em, till they wuz beautiful to