nd he would soar away from her to go and be an
angel. But one day she mended a hole in his pocket, and bein' on-used
to mendin' she took a wrong turn, and sewed the pocket right up.

"Well! well! I don't spoze she ever worried about his angel qualities
after that time. I spoze he cut up dretful and said words she never
dremp of his knowin' by sight, and she wuz jest as surprised and
horrified as she would have been to had a lamb or a cooin' dove bust
out in profanity. But he wuz a likely man, and got over it quick, and
wuz most too good to her for a spell afterwards, as pardners have been
wont to do on such occasions ever since the creation of the world.

"But, as I say, matrimony has difficulties enough when Love heads the
procession and Wedded Bliss plays the trombone in the orkestry."

She looked real interested as if my words wuz awful congenial to her.
And whilst watchin' her sweet face growin' brighter and sweeter, I
thought of another thing that I thought mebby she had been worryin'
about and that I could comfort her up in, just as I would want our
Tirzah Ann comforted under like circumstances, and I got real eloquent
talkin' about this before I got through.

Sez I: "Of course, my dear, there wuz some talk about your pardner
havin' his eye on your proppity, but I wouldn't let that worry me, for
I've always said that if I wuz a rich, handsome young woman, I would
just as soon be married for my money as my beauty. They're both
outside of the real self, equally transitory, or in fact, the money if
invested in govermunt bonds is more lasting. For the national system
is fur more firm and steadfast than the physical.

"Fifty years hence I spoze the money will all be safe and gainin'
interest, so if that is what a woman is married for she will keep her
attraction and even increase it. But fifty years hence where will her
beauty be, if she wuz married alone for that? Where are its powerful
attractions? All gone. If she had nothing but the beauty of snowy brow
and brilliant eye and clustering locks and perfect features.

"But beauty that looks from the soul through the face. Ah! that is
another thing! That still remains when the dusky hair is changed to
white, when the glow is turned to shadows in the eyes, when the lithe
form is bent. That is a bit of the eternal, and forever young like its
Creator. You have got that beauty, my dear, as well as proppity, so
don't worry."

I felt real eloquent, and I could see by h