ll change, cheap
as dirt?"

"Well, yes," said Cynthy Ann, hesitating.

"I'll bet the heft of my fortin', to be paid on receipt of the amount,
that I kin tell to a T what the good Christian wanted me to do."

"Don't be oncharitable, Jonas. Brother Goshorn is a mighty sincere man."

"So he is, but his bein' sincere don't do me no good. He wanted you to
advise me to jine the Methodist class as a way of gittin' out of the
difficulty. And you was too good a Christian to ask me to change fer any
sech reason, knowin' I wouldn't be fit for you ef I did."

Cynthy Ann was silent. She would have liked to have Jonas join the
church with her, but if he had done it now she herself would have
doubted his sincerity.

"Now, looky here, Cynthy, ef you'll say you don't love me, and never
can, I'll leave you to wunst, and fly away and mourn like a turtle-dove.
But so long as it's nobody but Goshorn, I'm goin' to stay and litigate
the question till the Millerite millennium comes. I appeal to Caeesar or
somebody else. Neither Brother Goshorn nor Brother Hall knows enough to
settle this question. I'm agoin' to the persidin' elder. And you can't
try a man and hang him and then send him to the penitentiary fer the
rest of his born days without givin' him one chance to speak fer hisself
agin the world and everybody else. I'm goin' to see the persidin' elder
myself and plead my own cause, and ef he goes agin me, I'll carry it up
to the bishop or the archbishop or the nex' highest man in the heap,
till I git plum to the top, and ef they all go agin me, I'll begin over
agin at the bottom with Brother Goshorn, and keep on till I find a man
that's got common-sense enough to salt his religion with."

CHAPTER XXXII.

JULIA'S ENTERPRISE.

4 August was very sick at the castle. This wag the first news of his
return that reached Julia through Jonas and Cynthy Ann.

But in my interest in Jonas and Cynthy Ann, of whom I think a great
deal, I forgot to say that long before the events mentioned in the last
chapter, Humphreys had been suddenly called away from his peaceful
retreat in the hill country of Clark township. In fact, the "important
business," or "the illness of a friend," whichever it was, occurred the
very next day after Norman Anderson's father returned from Louisville,
and reported that he had secured for his son an "outside situation,"
that is to say, a place as a collector.

When he had gone, Jonas remarked to Cynthy Ann, "Where