life, ‘n’ I’m free to confess ’t I haven’t cried anywhere near ’s much ’s I looked to.  My feelin’s have been pretty agreeable, take it all in all, ‘n’ I’d be a born fool ’f I didn’t take solid comfort sleepin’ nights, ‘n’ I never was a fool—­never was ‘n’ never will be.  The havin’ somebody to sleep in the house ’s been hard, ‘n’ Mrs. Macy’s fallin’ through the cellar-flap giv’ me a bad turn, but she’s doin’ nicely, ‘n’ the minister makes up f’r anythin’.  I do wish ’t you’d seen him that afternoon, Mrs. Lathrop; he did look so most awful sheepish, ‘n’ his clean collar give him dead away afore he ever opened his mouth.  He set out by sayin’ ’t the consolations of religion was mine f’r the askin’, but I didn’t take the hint, ‘n’ so he had to jus’ come out flat ‘n’ say ‘t he’d been thinkin’ it over ‘n’ he’d changed his mind.  I held my head good ‘n’ high ’t that, I c’n assure you, ‘n’ it was a pretty sorry look he give me when I said ’t I’d been thinkin’ it over too, ‘n’ I’d changed my mind too.  He could ‘a’ talked to me till doomsday about his bein’ a consolation, I’d know it was nothin’ ‘t changed him but me comin’ into them government bonds.  No man alive could help wantin’ me after them bonds was found, ‘n’ I had the great pleasure o’ learnin’ that fact out o’ Lawyer Weskin himself.  All his species o’ fun-makin’ ’t nobody but hisself ever sees any fun in, jus’ died right out when we unlocked father’s old desk ‘n’ come on that bundle o’ papers.  He give one look ‘n’ then all his gay spinniness oozed right out o’ him, ‘n’ he told me ’s serious ’s a judge ’t a woman ’s rich ’s I be needed a good lawyer to look out f’r her ‘n’ her property right straight along.  Well, I was ’s quick to reply ’s he was to speak.  ‘N’ I was to the point too.  I jus’ up ‘n’ said, Yes, I thought so myself, ‘n’ jus’ ’s soon ’s I got things to rights I was goin’ to the city ‘n’ get me one.”

Miss Clegg paused to frown reminiscently; Mrs. Lathrop’s eyes never quitted the other’s face.

“There was Mr. Sperrit too.  Come with a big basket o’ fresh vegetables ’t he said he thought ‘d maybe tempt my appetite.  I d’n’ know ’s I ever enjoyed rappin’ no one over the knuckles more ’n I did him.  I jus’ stopped to take in plenty o’ breath ‘n’ then I let myself out, ‘n’ I says to him flat ‘n’ plain, I says, ’Thank you kindly, but I guess no woman in these parts ’s better able to tempt her own appetite ‘n’ I be now, ‘n’ you’ll be doin’ me the only kindness ’t it’s in you to do me now if you’ll jus’ take your garden stuff ‘n’ give it to some one ’s is poor ‘n’ needin’.’  He looked so crestfallen ’t I made up my mind ’t it was then or never to settle my whole score with him, so I up ‘n’ looked him right in the eye ‘n’ I says to him, I says, ’Mr. Sperrit, you didn’t seem to jus’ realize what it meant to me that day ’t I took that horse ‘n’ buggy ‘n’ drove ’way out to your farm to see you; you didn’t seem to think what it meant to me to take that trip:  but I c’n tell you ‘t it costs suthin’ for a woman to do a thing like that; it cost me a good deal—­it cost me fifty cents.’  He went away then, ‘n’ he can marry Eliza Gringer if he likes, ‘n’ I’ll wish ’em both joy ‘n’ consider myself the luckiest o’ the three.”