time, and considerable agreeable."

"Agreeable!" sez she; "they're almost divine." Arvilly always wuz most
too ramptious in everything she undertook; she never loved to wander
down the sweet, calm plains of Megumness, as I do.

And then I spoze Cephus made everything of her, and it wuz a real rarity
to her to be made on and flattered up by a good-lookin' man.

But well he might make of her--he will be doin' dretful well to git
Arvilly; she's a good worker and calculator, and her principles are like
brass and iron for soundness; and she's real good-lookin', too,
now--looks 'leven years younger, or ten and a half, anyway.

But jest as Arvilly and I wuz a-withdrawin' ourselves from each other, I
sez,

"Arvilly, have you been to the Fair Sundays?"

"No," sez she; "I didn't lay out to, for I could go week days. 'The
Precious Performances' yields money to spare to take me there week days,
and you know that I only wanted it open for them that couldn't git there
any day but Sundays. And also," sez she honestly,

"I talked a good deal, bein' so mad at the Nation for makin' such
dretful hard work partakin' of a gnat, and then swallerin' down Barnum's
hull circus, side-shows and all.

"Why didn't the Nation shet up the saloons?" sez she, in bitter axents.
"Folks can have their doubts about Sunday openin' bein' wicked, but the
Lord sez expressly that 'no drunkard can inherit Heaven.' The nation wuz
so anxious to set patterns before the young--why wuzn't it afraid to
turn human bein's into fiends before 'em, liable to shoot down these
dear young folks, or lead 'em into paths worse than death?

"And it wuz so anxious to show off well before foreign nations. Wuz it
any prettier sight to reel round before 'em, drunk as a fool,
a-committin' suicide, and rapinin', and murder, and actin'? I wuz so
mad," sez Arvilly, "that I felt ugly, and spoze I talked so."

"Wall," sez I, "they've acted dretful queer about Sunday openin', take
it from first to last.

"But," sez I, reasonably, "takin' such a dretful big thing onto their
hands to manage would be apt to make folks act queer.

"I spoze," sez I, fallin' a little ways into oritory--"I spoze that if
Josiah and me had took a rinosterhorse to board durin' the heated
term, our actions would often be termed queer by our neighbors. To begin
with, it's bein' such new business to us, we shouldn't know what to feed
it, to agree with its immense stomach; we should, I dare presoom to say,