l, how happy everybody wuz; how good they looked to me and I
to them, I knew it by their liniments. How the children doted on me
and their Pa, how dear little Tommy hung round us. How softened down
Arvilly wuz by her happiness in havin' Waitstill back agin, but still
she kep' her faculties from rustin', and sold two books that day for
presents, and one to Elder Minkley for a Sabbath School prize.

How adorable Waitstill looked in her pretty cashmere gown of pale
violet color with white roses at her bosom and belt, she had throwed
off her black as a reasonable widder should, I never approved of
mournin' for one man whilst weddin' another, that is mournin' in
public in crape and weeds. I don't believe she had a black rag on her,
she might you know if she had been sly have put a black bindin' on her
petticoat or a black pocket. I remember the Widder Doodle did, but I
never approved of it. No, mournin' weeds are right in their place, and
orange blossoms in theirn, but I never believed in mixin' the two.

Down deep in Waitstill's heart, hid from every eye but the one who
made that heart, wuz a place where her thought must retire into now
and then and weep. Yes, I knowed that whilst her loyal love and
respect and reverence wuz all given to the man she loved, who wuz
strong, her thought would anon or oftener have to go into that sombry
room and weep for the young lover who wuz weak, but whose weakness
would never have blossomed into crime had not his country hung the
Sodom apple before his eyes and his weak appetite yielded to it, had
overthrown the labor and efforts of years, tempted him with low
temptations that had been stronger than love, stronger than religion,
stronger than life. All his life long he had fought against inherited
tastes as they fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, and he would have
come off conqueror had it not been for licensed evils and the
weaknesses in high and low places that permitted it to be.

Yes, into that closely locked, sombry chamber I knowed that Waitstill
would go alone and stay there for quite a spell. But after a time I
mistrusted the sweet peace and happiness of her life would be such
that she would go seldomer and make shorter visits when she did go.
And its black gloom would be lighted by tones of living love and
gleams of light and warmth from tender eyes. And I hoped that the time
would come when dimpled baby fingers would gently bar the doorway and
she wouldn't go there to stay for