nd I methought if so, what must I do? Must I
tell my beloved companion? Or must I, as the poet sez, "Let
concealment, like a worm in the rug, feed on my damaged cheek?"

But thoughts of the quick, ardent temper of my beloved companion bade
me relinquish the thought of confidin' in him. No, I dassent, for I
knew that his weight wuz but small by the steelyards, and Mr. Pomper's
size wuz elephantine, with probably muscles accordin'. No, I felt I
must rely on myself. But the feelin's I felt nobody can tell. Thinks
I, "It has come onto me jest what I have always read and scorfed at";
for I had always thought and said that no self-respectin' female need
be inviggled unless she had encouraged the inviggler, or had a hand in
the invigglin'. But alas! with no fault of my own, onless it wuz my
oncommon good looks,--and of course them I couldn't help,--here I wuz
the heroine of a one-eyed tragedy, for I felt that the smoulderin'
fire burnin' in that solitary orb might bust forth at any time and
engulf me and my pardner in a common doom.

But two things I felt I could do; I could put on a real lot of
dignity, and could keep a eagle watch onto my beloved pardner, and if
I see any sign of Mr. Pompers attacktin' him, or throwin' him
overboard, I felt the strength of three wimmen would be gin to me, and
I could save him or perish myself in the attempt. In accordance with
them plans, when Mr. Pomper approached us bringin' us some easier
chairs, I confronted him with a look that must have appauled his
guilty mind, and when he sez to me:

"It is a pleasant day, mom."

I looked several daggers at him and some simiters, and never said a
word. And when a short time afterwards he asked me what time of day it
wuz, pretendin' his watch had stopped, I looked full and cold in his
face for several minutes before I sez in icy axents, "I don't know!"
Every word fallin' from my lips like ice-suckles from a ruff in a
January thaw, and then I turned my back and went away from him.

Vain attempt! What wicked arts men do possess! He pretended to believe
I wuz deef, and with that pretext he dasted to approach still nearer
to me and kinder hollered out:

"What time of day is it?"

I see I must answer him, or make a still more sentimental and
romantick seen, and I sez, with extreme frigidity and icy chill, "I
don't know anything about it."

[Illustration: _"'What does ail you, Samantha, lockin' arms with me all
the time--it will make talk!' he whi