[Illustration:  She bust her old sides in the attempt.]

I know Miss Plank couldn’t, for we met her there, or ruther she come onto us, as I stood stun still and nearly lost, and by the side of myself, and I felt so queer that I couldn’t hardly speak to her.  I don’t know but she thought I felt big and haughty, but good land! how mistook she wuz if she thought so!  I felt as small as I stood there that very minute, as one drop of milk in the hull milky way.

But when my senses got kinder collected together, and my emotions got quelled down a little, I passed the usual compliments with Miss Plank—­“How de do?” and so forth.

And she proposed that we should go round a little together—­she said that she had been here so many times, that she felt she could offer herself as our “Sissy Roney.”

She looked at Josiah as she spoke kinder kokettish, and I thought to myself, You are a-actin’ pretty kittenish for a woman of your age.

“Sissy!” Sez I to myself, the time for you to be called “sissy” rightfully lays fur back in the past—­as much as fifty years back, anyway.  As for the “Roney,” I didn’t know what she did mean, but spozed it wuz some sort of a pet name that had been gin her fur away in that distant past.

And I spozed she had brung it up to kinder attract Josiah Allen; but, good land! if his morals hadn’t been like iron for solidity, I knew that for her to try to flirt wuz like a old hen to try to bite; they don’t have no teeth, hens don’t, even when they are young, and they won’t be likely to have any when they are fifty or sixty years old.  So I looked on with composure, and didn’t take no notice of her flirtacious ways, and I consented to her propisition, and Josiah did too.  That man hadn’t been riz up by his emotions as I had, by the majesty and glory of the scene—­no, he felt pretty chipper; and Miss Plank, after she quieted down a little, and ceased talkin’ about her girlish days, she could think, even in that rapt hour, of pancakes; for she mentioned, when I spoke of how high the waters of the fountain riz up, “Yes,” sez she—­

“Speakin’ of risin’, I left some pancakes a-risin’ before I left home;” and she wondered if the cook would tend to ’em.

Pancakes! in such a time as this.

And then Josiah proposed to go and see the live stock, and Miss Plank said dreamily that she would like to go to a certain restaurant at the fur end of the grounds to see the cookin’ of a certain chef; she had heard it went ahead of anything in America.

“Chef”—­I didn’t want to act green, but I did wonder what “chef” wuz.  I thought mebby it wuz chaff she meant, and I spozed they had got up some new way to cook chaff.

I would liked to seen it and tasted of it, but Duty begened to me, and I followed her blindly, and I sez, as I planted my umbrell firm down on the ground, sez I—­

“Here I take my stand; I don’t often stand out and try to have my way—­”