t he felt, he repeated it, with slight
alteration, "My wentersome little one!" at the same time lifting his
eyes to heaven and shaking his finger in a menacing way at the air.

"Me--your own--headlong at his heels," whispered the widow, softly. And
then she boxed his ear with the tips of her fingers, and then he said he
would love to have her a-boxin' on 'em forever, and then she laughed
incredulously, and then she went on:--

'Stop, you willain, till I ontie myself,' says I.

"'Ontie me, you wixen!' says he, 'who cares whether you are ontied or
not?' and he histed the winder,--a two-story winder it was,--and out he
went!"

"My brain is a-reelin'!" cries John. "You poor dewoted dove!"

"Dewoted, sure enough," says the widow, "and dewoted you'd 'a' thought
if you'd 'a' seen me; for up he hists the winder, and out he goes. Now
there was the framework of a new house--a great skeleton like--standin'
alongside of us, and into that he waults, and I waults after him,--for
what could I do but wault?--and away he goes from beam to beam, and from
jice to jice, and from scantlin' to scantlin', waultin' up and up, and
me waultin' after,--for what could I do but wault?--and cryin' with all
my might, 'You willain!' and he a-cryin' back, 'You wixen!' and the moon
a-shinin' like a blaze, and the meetin' folks goin' by, and my
night-gownd a-floppin', and both of us plain wisible!

"'Help! murder!' I cries, for my salwation depended on it, and, seein'
the meetin' folks adwance, he just waulted from the timber onto which we
stood right into the thin and insupportable air--"

"And dragged you after him? Lord 'a' mercy!" cried John.

"No," says the widow, speaking with great calmness; "my presence of mind
never forsook me,--I was an undertaker's daughter, and adwantage of
birth prewailed over the disadwantage of position,--I waulted down the
tother side; and there we hung balanced into the air, and there we would
have hung all night but for the accident of the rewival.

"When they cut us down,--which one of the rewival folks did with his
jack-knife,--I woluntarily fainted away, and was carried in for dead,
and didn't rewive, and wouldn't rewive, for hours and hours. La me! I
was so ashamed!"

"I wish it had been my forten to carry you into the house," says John.

"So do I," says the widow; "but let us be thankful that the wicissitudes
of life have driv us together at last."

"At last, sure enough," says John; "you speak wisdom