me as a cat eyes a dog kennel
and hung off from readin' it. But wantin' to git the hard job over
before night sot in, about the middle of the afternoon I read a few
verses of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, put two cushions in the rockin'
chair, took a swaller of spignut and thorough-o'-wort to kinder hold
up my strength, and a few whiffs of camfire, and then I put on my
near-to specs, opened the letter with a deep sithe and begun to read.
But good land! I needn't have foreboded so; I might have knowed that
though her hatred of matrimony wuz great, her egotism and self esteem
wuz bigger yet.

The letter stated in glowin' terms her gratefulness to her Creator to
think she had a nephew so bound up in her interest and welfare. She
said that she had mentioned one day, durin' a severe attack of
bilerous colic her fears and forebodin's about Dorothy's future if she
should succumb to the colic and leave her alone. She said that it
wuzn't a week after this that her nephew and Dorothy had confided to
her the fact of their engagement.

Sez she, "Not one word to Dorothy have I mentioned or ever shall
mention as to Robert's reasons for sacrificin' himself to ease my
mind, and make me more care free. I wouldn't for the world," sez she,
"have Dorothy suspect why Robert has made a martyr of himself, and to
no one but you, Josiah Allen's wife," sez she, "shall I ever breathe
it." But she felt that she could confide in me, and wanted me to know
just how it wuz.

So her colossial self esteem carried her through safely, and she wuz
as happy as any on 'em. She wuz goin' to live in a little house Robert
had bought for her in San Francisco. Martha, the steady English maid,
wuz goin' to live with her, as she had proved faithful. And she added
a few heart breakin' words of grief and mournfulness about our dear
lost Aronette.

And she gin me to understand that sence Aronette's dretful death in
New York she had gradually changed her mind about drinking.

I believe Arvilly's talk helped convince her, though Miss Meechim
would never own it to her dyin' day, and I d'no as Arvilly would want
her to, they just naterally abominate each other.

But 'tennyrate she said she felt that nothing that could lead on to
that awful termination and terrible tragedy, could be called genteel.
And she said she had had a argument with Rev. Mr. Weakdew, in which
they had both got genteelly angry (tearin' mad I should call it from
what she told me of their interview).