And I thought more’n like as not that wuz the last I should see of him for hours and hours, the crowd wuz so immense and the search wuz so oncertain.

But it wuz a good new handkerchief—­red and yeller, with a palm-tree pattern on it—­and I couldn’t discourage him from huntin’ for it.

And jest as he turned to go back, he sez—­

“Why, if there hain’t Deacon Rogers of Loontown!”

And he advanced onto a good-lookin’ man, who wuz a-standin’ some distance off.

My pardner put out his hand and stepped forward with a glad face till he got to within three feet of him, and then his gladness died out, and he looked meachin’.

It wuzn’t Rogers.  And my pardner jest turned on his tracks, and disappeared round the buildin’.  A bystander who wuz a-standin’ by spoke up and sez: 

“That is Governor Markham, of California.”

“Why’ee!” sez I, “is that so?” and then the thought come to me that the pityin’ Providence that had removed Senator Stanford from my encouragement, and warnin’, had throwed this man in my way.

I see in a minit what would be expected of me both by the nation and by my own Gardeen Angel of Duty.

I must encourage him by tellin’ him what I thought of the noble doin’s of one of his folks, and I must warn him on a few things, and git him to turn round in his tracks.

So I advanced, and accosted him.

He was a-standin’ out a little ways to one side a-lookin’ up to the handsome front of the house, and I sez to him, in a voice nearly tremblin’ with emotion—­

“I have wanted to tell you, Governor Markham, how I feel, and how Josiah feels.”

He turned round and looked kinder surprised, but good-natered, and I see then that he wuz a real good-lookin’ man, and sez he—­“Who is Josiah?”

And I sez, “My own pardner.  I am Josiah Allen’s Wife.”

And as I sez this, bein’ very polite, I kinder bowed my head, and he kinder bowed his head too.  We appeared real well, both on us.

And sez I, “We feel it dretful, the passin’ away and expirin’ of one of your folks.”

And sez he, “You allude to Senator Stanford?”

And I sez, “Yes; when I think of that noble school of hisen that he has sot up there in your great State—­the finest school in the world for poor boys and poor girls, as well as rich ones—­when I think what that great educational power is a-goin’ to do for the children of this great country, rich and poor, I think on him almost by the side of Christopher Columbus.  For if Christopher discovered a new world, Senator Stanford wuz a-takin’ the youth of this country into a new realm—­a-sailin’ ’em out into a new world, and a grander one than they’d any idee on—­a-sailin’ ’em out on the great ship of his magnificent Charity; and that Ship,” sez I, in a kind of a tremblin’ voice, “wuz wafted out at first on the sombre wings of a heart-breakin’ sorrow; but they grew white,” sez I—­“they grew silver white as that great Ship sailed on and on.