Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/304

 glad I am, Josiah Allen's wife, that you could come while I am here, I am so glad to visit with you." And then she would retire agin into that remote world of her own and abide there in her own pink castles set down on blue landscapes, amongst her own strange lookin' animals and birds and flowers and things.

And Tamer would say anon and every little while, "How glad I am, Cousin Samantha, that you could come and visit with me and Celestine." And then she would retire into her own enchanted realm amongst her own droves of pirates and outlaws and romantic heroines and villians. It wuz a queer time, queer as a dog, but I had real good visits with Anna, sweet girl, with the shadder of the deepest sorrow of youth and life hangin' black above her. And she wuz so good and innocent and obedient that she said she had told Tom she would never marry aginst her mother's wishes, "For," sez she, "Aunt Samantha, with Ma's health as it is she says it would kill her, and as I tell Tom, what comfort could I ever take even as his wife if I had been the cause of my mother's death?"

So I didn't really know how it wuz comin' out. I couldn't see much chance for Anna's future, for I expected jest as much to see a mornin' glory sproutin' out of my dry oven as to see any blossom of tenderness and consideration growin' in the ambitious, sandy, trompled sile of Tamer's heart.

It looked dark before me, dark as Egyptian shades, blind creeter that I wuz, and, oh! of little faith. I knew well whose hand wuz at the hellum, and I might have trusted more, my faith might have been as big as the pint of a pin, but I don't spoze it wuz, or I wouldn't have felt as I did. If my faith had been as big as the