colored mosaic, and looks
first-rate, but I didn't pay much attention to that for right underneath
the centre is an exact reproduction of the rock where Abraham offered up
Isaac, or got ready to. How Love and Duty tugged at Abraham's heart and
most tore it into as he stood there, and what faith he had. It is
heart-breakin' to think on't, though it all come out right in the end,
as the hardest things will if we cling to Duty.

But Josiah wuz gittin' worrisome and wanted to go, but I sez, "Josiah, I
must see Solomon's Temple."

It wuz quite a few steps away, but I didn't begrech the time or journey,
and jest as we wuz goin' up the steps, who should we meet comin' out but
Jane Olive Perkins (_nay_ Gowdey) once a Jonesvillian, but now livin' in
Chicago, but visitin' her old home and relation quite often.

She wuz dressed beautiful, her neck and bosom sparklin' with diamonds. I
don't approve of such dressin' in the street, but Jane Olive wuz always
showy.

She held out both hands in joyful greetin' (the meanin' of which I
mistrusted afterwards). We talked about the splendor of the Fair and our
own two healths, and the Jonesvillians, and then she sez:

"I am so delighted to meet you, Josiah Allen's wife, for I know you will
want to give to a noble cause I am workin' for, you and dear Mr. Allen.
It is a cause that ort to be first in every feelin' heart, and I knew
you'd give liberal."

I'd forgot my portmoney that mornin' and didn't want right there in
Solomon's Temple to dicker with Josiah for money, I knowed it would make
him fraxious. And I wuz havin' such a lot of lofty emotions there at
Jerusalem, I didn't want to bring 'em down by havin' words with my
pardner. And I knowed too that "dear Mr. Allen" would be apt to say hash
things that would bring him down in Jane Olive's estimation, he's so
clost and he never liked her to begin with.

So I said I couldn't very well stop and tend to it right there in
Solomon's Temple, and she asked me for my address and told me she should
come and see me. She wuz stayin' at a big tarven not so very fur from
Miss Huff's, and said she'd brought her orto and shuffler with her from
Chicago.

Well, she bid us a tender adoo, sayin' the last thing "_owe Revwah_," or
sunthin' like that and Josiah sez to me:

"Who's she twittin' us on? I don't owe nobody by that name, nor never
did, not a cent, I'm a man that pays my debts."

And I sez, "Dear Josiah, nobody that knows you can dispute