n. The face
would have been fat had it not been half-starved. It was pale now under
the ill-kempt hair, and the set purpose of helpfulness was stamped upon
it. She took back the word "leer" out of mere respect. Darling had given
away his shoes; he was walking barefoot; he had given away coat and vest
also, and the rotund lines of his figure were unpleasantly obvious under
the wet shirt, and yet Susannah knew and bowed to the fact that some
sick man or little child was wrapped in the garments that were gone.

But Elvira was expressing with hysterical warmth the same sentiments.

"I guess I'll feel it an honour to have my name joined with yours. I
haven't got the length of taking off my shoes yet."

Darling began to sing one of the inspiriting Mormon hymns.

"When Joseph to Cumorah came."

"Poor Joe!" Elvira spoke to the elder in a confidential whisper, "when
he cheated over the bank I thought some fiend had put a ring in his
nose, and was leading him out to dance, and that I should be able to sit
and laugh. Now he's lying upon straw in the gaol. What will they do to
him if they lynch him?"

"Tear him limb from limb," whispered Darling, also under his breath. He
was probably shrewd enough to know the force of Smith's suffering in
stimulating the piety of the faithful, but truth, and grief concerning
the truth, were in his words also. He sighed a big sincere sigh, and
repeated sadly, "Tear him limb from limb, or burn him to death by a slow
fire." Such atrocities, as practised upon criminal negroes, were not
unknown in the locality, which gave the elder's words a graphic power,
but Elvira's answer was wholly unexpected.

"How droll!" she returned.

The elder was annoyed. He had not refined susceptibilities which sought
immediate relief from the dreadful pictures he had suggested, nor did he
at all comprehend that her rippling smile was hysterical. "I don't see
anything droll about it, sister," he said sulkily.

"Don't you? Now, it all seems to me very droll--you splashing along
there barefoot, why" (she drew back a little to get the better view,
laughing excitedly), "you've no idea how ridiculous you look; and Mrs.
Halsey stalking along like a dignified ghost, afraid that you and I will
kiss one another if we take to whispering, and this woman dying here
with her head resting on a sack of potatoes, and the impudent little
person you've just christened intruding herself upon the world only to
go out of it again