sperately. But the old man, instead of turning black or
blue, or slaying her in his indignation, jumped up from his chair, and
began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.

'O, happy thing! How well it falls out!' he exclaimed, snapping his
fingers over his head. 'Ha-ha--the knot is cut--I see a way out of my
trouble--ha-ha!'

She looked at him without uttering a sound, till, as he still
continued smiling joyfully, she said, 'O--what do you mean? Is it done
to torment me?'

'No--no! O, mee deer, your story helps me out of the most heart-aching
quandary a poor man ever found himself in! You see, it is this--_I've_
got a tragedy, too; and unless you had had one to tell, I could never
have seen my way to tell mine!'

'What is yours--what is it?' she asked, with altogether a new view of
things.

'Well--it is a bouncer; mine is a bouncer!' said he, looking on the
ground and wiping his eyes.

'Not worse than mine?'

'Well--that depends upon how you look at it. Yours had to do with the
past alone; and I don't mind it. You see, we've been married a month,
and it don't jar upon me as it would if we'd only been married a day
or two. Now mine refers to past, present, and future; so that--'

'Past, present, and future!' she murmured. 'It never occurred to me
that you had a tragedy too.'

'But I have!' he said, shaking his head. 'In fact, four.'

'Then tell 'em!' cried the young woman.

'I will--I will. But be considerate, I beg 'ee, mee deer. Well--I
wasn't a bachelor when I married 'ee, any more than you were a
spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was a widow-man.'

'Ah!' said she, with some surprise. 'But is that all?--then we are
nicely balanced,' she added, relieved.

'No--it is not all. There's the point. I am not only a widower.'

'O, David!'

'I am a widower with four tragedies--that is to say, four
strapping girls--the eldest taller than you. Don't 'ee look so
struck--dumb-like! It fell out in this way. I knew the poor woman,
their mother, in Pen-zephyr for some years; and--to cut a long story
short--I privately married her at last, just before she died. I kept
the matter secret, but it is getting known among the people here by
degrees. I've long felt for the children--that it is my duty to have
them here, and do something for them. I have not had courage to break
it to 'ee, but I've seen lately that it would soon come to your ears,
and that hev worried me.'

'Are they educated?'