her mind
any.

Dorothy bein' naterally so smart, wuz impressed by all we had seen, I
could see she wuz, and when he wuzn't lookin' at her I could see her
eyes rest on Robert Strong's face with a new expression of interest
and approval. But she wuz full of light, happiness and joy--as she ort
to be in her bright youth--and she and Robert and Miss Meechim spoke
of the trip ahead on us with happy anticipations.

But I--oh, that deep, holler room in my heart into which no stranger
looked; that room hung with dark, sombry black; remembrances of him
the great ocean wuz a-goin' to sever me from--he on land and I on
sea--ten thousand miles of land and water goin' to separate us; how
could I bear it, how wuz I goin' to stand it? I kep' up, made remarks
and answered 'em mekanically, but oh, the feelin's I felt on the
inside. How little can we tell in happy lookin' crowds how many of the
gay throng hear the rattle of their own private skeletons above the
gayest music!

Well, we got home to the Palace hotel in good season, I a-talkin'
calmly and cheerfully, but sayin' in the inside, "'Mid pleasures and
palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humbly there is no place
like home." My home wuz my pardner, the place where he wuz would look
better than any palace.

I went up to my room and after gettin' Tommy to bed, who wuz cross and
sleepy, I finished the letter to my help, for we wuz goin' to start in
the mornin'.

"Oh, Philury!" the letter run, "my feelin's, you cannot parse 'em,
even if you wuz better grounded in grammar than I think you be. Not
one word from my beloved pardner do I hear--is Josiah dead?" sez I.
"But if he is don't tell me; I could not survive, and Tommy has got to
be went with. But oh! if sickness and grief for me has bowed that
head, bald, but most precious to me, deal with him as you would deal
with a angel unawares. Bile his porridge, don't slight it or let it be
lumpy, don't give him dish-watery tea, brile his toast and make his
beef tea as you would read chapters of scripter--carefully and not
with eye service. Hang my picter on the wall at the foot of the bed,
and if it affects him too much, hang my old green braize veil over it,
you'll find it in the hall cupboard."

But why should I sadden and depress the hearts of a good natered
public? I writ seven sheets of foolscap, and added to what I had
already writ, it made it too big to send by mail, so I put it in a
collar box and sent it by express, c