'And I looked sympathizin' on her and sez jest for all the world as I used to at school, "I wish I could help you out, Albina Ann."
"That's jest what I've come for," sez she; "I've got to go to Henry's for a spell, anyway," and would I for the sake of old times, to say nothin' of the ties of third cousin, would I let her poor sick girl come down into the country and see if the country air and my care would recuperate her up a little mite, or if she couldn't be helped, make the poor dear, dyin' girl as comfortable as I could? She said money wuz no object to her. And I said it wuzn't no object to me. And then she said she thought it wuz a mysterious Providential affliction to have her beautiful only daughter so delicate and liable to expire any minute, still she felt that it wuz tough on her, and she bespoke my sympathy, jest as she used to git help in her old Ruger and Olney's gography. And she asked me pintedly if I didn't think it wuz a strange, strange dispensation of Providence that when she wuz so abundantly able to care for her only daughter, so many poor girls wuz spared healthy and happy, and her only girl seemed about to be took, and sez she, "She wuz a healthy baby, weighed ten pounds at first, but," she added, "she is so sweet and pure that probable the angels feel that they can't do without her society much longer."
And I sot up on the fence, mentally, as it were pretty straight, and didn't say yea or nay, knowin' that many things wuz laid on Providence He wuzn't to blame for.
Well, I told Albina Ann, after thinkin' it over and consultin' Josiah out in the hoss barn, that she might send her girl down for a spell and I'd do the best I could for her. She seemed to be real relieved when I
