mes from a little
dish he had with him, and then begun to pray and kep' up his devotions
for half an hour, and Arvilly of course not wantin' to break up a
meetin' put her book into her work-bag and went away. I kinder like
the idee of their worshippin' under the blue dome of heaven, though of
course I didn't like their idee of worshippin' the created instead of
the Creator. In travellin' through these countries more and more every
day did I feel to thank the Lord that I wuz a member of the M. E.
meetin' house in Jonesville, U. S., a humble follower of him who went
about doing good, but I didn't feel like goin' on as Miss Meechim did.
How she did look down on the Parsees and compared 'em to the Piscopals
to their immense disadvantage.

But Arvilly, the iconoclast, sez, "These Parsees boast that there is
not a pauper or woman of bad character in the hull of their sect, and
I wonder if any other religious sect in America could say as much as
that, Miss Meechim?"

Miss Meechim turned her head away and sniffed some; she hates to enter
into a argument with Arvilly, but she wuz gittin' real worked up and I
don't know how it would have ended, but I spoke right up and quoted
some Bible to 'em, thinkin' mebby that it might avert a storm.

Sez I, "Charity vaunteth not itself. Charity thinketh no evil,
suffereth long and is kind."

I meant both on 'em to take it, and I meant to take some on't myself.
I knowed that I wuz sometimes a little hash with my beloved pardner.
But a woman, if she don't want to be run over has to work every way to
keep a man's naterel overbeariness quelled down. I worship him and he
knows it, and if I didn't use headwork he would take advantage of that
worship and tromple on me.

But though Arvilly didn't canvass the Parsee, she sold several copies
of the "Twin Crimes" to English residents who seemed to hail the idee
of meeting a Yankee book-agent in the Orient with gladness.

CHAPTER XXII

Dorothy and Miss Meechim and Robert Strong went over to an island on
the bay to see the caves of Elephanta, the great underground temple,
one hall of which is one hundred and fifty feet long, the lofty
ceilin' supported by immense columns, and three smaller halls, the
walls of all on 'em richly sculptured.

Whose hands made them statutes? I don't know nor Josiah don't and I
guess nobody duz. There wuz a thoughtful look on Dorothy's sweet face
when she came home, and Robert Strong too seemed walkin' in a