some murmured words of
prayer or blessing or appeal, and disappeared--soon forgot in our
boundless joy and the cares tendin' to our baggage.

Arvilly wuz glad to set her feet on shore, for she too loved her
native land with the love that a good principled, but stern
stepmother has for a interestin' but worrisome child that she's
bringin' up by hand. She thought she would go with the children to
their boarding-place, havin' knowed Miss Eliphalet Snow in their
young days, when Miss Snow wuz high-headed and looked down on her,
and wantin' to dant her, I spoze, with accounts of her foreign
travel. And we parted to meet agin in the mornin' to resoom our
voyage to Jonesville--blessed harbor where we could moor our two
barks, Josiah's and mine, and be at rest.

Miss Meechim and Dorothy and Robert laid out to start for California
the next day, as business wuz callin' Robert there loud and he had to
respond.

And I may as well tell it now as any time, for it has got to be told.
I knowed it wuz told to me in confidence, and it must be kep' for a
spell anyway, Robert and Dorothy wuz engaged, and they wuz goin' to be
married in a short time in her own beautiful home in San Francisco.
Now you needn't try to git me to tell who told me, for I am not as sot
as cast iron on that, I shall mention no names, only simply remarkin'
that Dorothy and Robert set store by me and I by them. Them that told
me said that they felt like death to not tell Miss Meechim of the
engagement, but knowin' her onconquerable repugnance to matrimony and
to Dorothy's marriage in particular, and not knowin' but what the news
would kill her stun dead, them that told me said they felt that they
had better git her back to her own native shores before bein' told,
which I felt wuz reasonable.

How I did hate to part with sweet Dorothy, I loved her and she me
visey versey. And Robert Strong, he sot up in my heart next to Thomas
J., and crowdin' up pretty clost to him too. Miss Meechim also had her
properties, and we had gone through wearisome travel, dangers and
fatigues, pleasant rest, delightful sight-seeing, poor vittles, joy
and grief together, and it wuz hard to break up old ties. But it had
to be. Our life here on this planet is made up of meetin's and
partin's. It is hail and farewell with us from the cradle to the
grave.

We all retired early, bein' tired out, and we slept well, little
thinkin' of the ghastly shape that would meet us on the thresholt of