strongly; "that you are as innocent o' what
you've be'n a sayin' as the babe unborn, and to your credit, pa, I
believe you be!"

"Wall, wall, ma," said Grandpa, now mentally lost and bewildered; "I
guess I know what I'm talkin' about!"

"And if you do, pa," said Grandma, with a solemnity that was unutterably
conclusive; "you know more than I do!"

Then, while the women talked, Grandpa, sitting alone in the south door,
sighed and whittled, and abstractedly scanned the horizon. Once, he made
a singularly bold attempt to entice Aunt Patty again into the channels of
profane conversation, by an introductory speculation as to the prospect
of the bean crop; but Grandma Keeler nipped this reckless and irreverent
adventure in the bud, by replying in a calm, vast tone:--

"Pa, it r'aly seems to me that for a vain creetur in a fleetin' world,
and a perfessor besides, there'd ought to be more things to talk about
than beans!"

Grandpa Keeler sighed still more deeply, gazed wistfully towards the
barn, as though he would fain have shuffled out in that direction; but
the weather being so warm, he refrained. He glanced at me with a feeble,
helpless smile, his head fell backward, his eyes gradually closed, and,
in spite of the iniquities which covered his ancient head, he fell into a
slumber that had all the semblance of childlike and unblemished
innocence.

CHAPTER XIX.

DEATH OF THE CRADLEBOW.

While Grandpa Keeler dozed peacefully, Emily Gaskell, also "passin' by,"
joined the group of women on the doorsteps of the Ark.

Emily, by the way, was regarded as a hopeful subject of the "awakenin'."
She had been to see a doctor in Farmouth, who told her she could not live
through another winter "with that cough on her." She sat very still in
the meetings, it was said, and seemed "tetched and wonderful," whereas
she had been wont formerly, on occasions of this solemn nature, to evince
many signs of restlessness, and even to engage in droll and sly
diversions for the greater delectation of the "unconsarned."

Emily herself was particularly unreserved on the subject of her spiritual
condition. Her tone had lost none of its former bright vivacity, though I
thought I saw frequently now, while she was talking, a softer shadow
steal over the restless, consuming fire in her blue eyes.

"I know what some on 'em say," said she; "I know what I might 'a'
said, jest as like as not, if it had been somebody else in my place. Oh,
she'