horse whippin' on one side and lynchin' on the
other, and bein' drove to it he tried it on the Esquimeauxs. They stood
it pretty well, though I noticed one or two on 'em weepin' bitterly, not
knowin' what ailed 'em.

Well, to resoom backward, I sez to Blandina, "I hearn Aspire Todd at a
Fourth of July celebration in Josiah's sugar bush."

"Oh," sez Blandina, claspin' her hands, "would it be possible for you to
introduce me to that noble being?"

Sez I, "You like his talk then?"

"Oh, yes!" sez she, shutting her eyes and clasping her hands. "His
matchless eloquence is beyond praise."

"So 'tis," sez I, "way beyond my praise. But I can introduce you if you
want me to; he visited me that time he wuz in Jonesville and stayed to
supper." So as he come round the corner of the buildin' follered by some
bewildered lookin' natives I put out my hand and sez, "I don't know as
you know me, Professor Aspire Todd, but you visited me in Jonesville. I
am Josiah Allen's wife."

He grasped my hand almost warmly and sez, "Indeed my memory retroacts
readily on that delightsome remembrance."

And then I introduced Blandina, knowin' I wuz makin' her perfectly happy
by so doin'. He'd growed old considerable, which I didn't blame him for
and didn't see as he could help it, twenty years havin' gone by. His
hair, which wuz still long and hung down over his turn-down collar, wuz
streaked with gray. But he still had the same kind of a curious,
sentimental, high-flown look to him.

I didn't admire his looks, but Blandina's manners to him wuz worshipful,
and it seemed to agree with him first rate, he seemed really to take to
her. And as he asked to accompany and go with us to the next exhibit, I
fell in with it, and when my pardner come walked ahead with him while
Professor Todd follered with a perfectly blissful Blandina, and before
they parted he arranged a rondevoo next day with Blandina.

I wuz beat out when I got home and Miss Huff sent Aunt Pheeny up to my
room with a glass of hot lemonade and some crackers, supper not bein'
quite ready owin' to shiftless works in the kitchen. Molly wuz in my
room also sweet as a June rosy. Aunt Tryphena wuz quiverin' with
excitement, and she sez, "Lazy, good for nothin' things! but it hain't
what they _do_ that I mind but it is their iggorance I despise."

Sez Molly, "If they are ignorant you ought to overlook it, Aunt Pheeny."

[Illustration]

"Overlook it!" sez she, turnin' an' facin' us with