know as much as Sappho or Aspasia, that I've hearn Thomas J. read about, I knew men never cared any too much about that, and as for Miss Sappho and Miss Aspasia, I never thought any too much of either on 'em, from what I'd hearn; Miss Sappho, with all her smartness, drownded herself; and as for Miss Aspasia, there is sights of talk about her and always wuz.
And then I felt a good deal of the time that Dr. Phillip had smartness enough for 'em both, and Dora wuz nobody's fool, and I felt that the sun of his strength and love would bring out the colors in her mind and soul jest as the sunlight changes a poor suller kep' house-plant in the spring of the year.
Well, anyway and 'tennyrate, I had to let it go on. I jest had to, for the stream wuz gittin' too deep for me to ford or dam (metafor), I meant the stream of deep, pure love that wuz a-flowin' round Dora and bearin' her on its deep bosom into happiness, as I trusted and felt, I felt it had got to bear her where it wanted to.
Well, one day Dora and Dr. Phillip had gone up the mountain road, the air wuz balmy as if it blowed off a bed of balm, and I had seen the happy pair set off under the mornin' sun lookin' fresh and bright almost as that luminary itself, only of course not so dazzlin'.
And my Josiah had gone into the wood lot after a load of stove wood, and I'd put on a clean gingham dress and sot there in my clean kitchen alone in all my glory, same as Solomon did, or the Queen of Sheba, I've most forgot which one on 'em it wuz, when I hearn a rap on the door and I went and opened it, and there stood a chap that I knew by the first look on him wuz Le Flam. He had that same look on him, sort o' dissi-
