Page:Samantha on Children's Rights.djvu/75

 (Them wuz her cheeks in metafor.) "But they look faded now, Fidelia," sez I—"dretful faded and wore out."

"Yes," sez she, "she has injured her eyesight this summer—injured it a sight. She has sot up till mid-*night, night after night, workin', for fear she wouldn't git 'em done in time. And then," sez she, bustin' out into a confidential tone, "she has cried a good deal. Oh, Samantha," sez she, "you don't know how much that girl is a-sufferin'. There she is, jest the same as engaged, and she jest as faithful as the north star to the pole, and he growin' cool all the time and indifferent."

"Well," sez I, "the stiddy faithfulness of the star can't be changed, Fidelia, nor the coldness of the north pole, for it is the nater of that pole to be frigid, and we can't do anything to warm it up. But," sez I, "as for this matter of Elinor and Louis Arnold, I believe my soul that I could make a change in their doin's if I had my way."

"Oh, dear Samantha! Could you, could you?" sez Fidelia, a-wipin' up her tears and lookin' some brighter.

"But," sez I, sort of lookin' off mentally some distance, "it hain't no ways likely that she would do what I would want her to."

"Oh, she would!" sez Fidelia.

"I would, I would!" cried Elinor, advancin' from behind the porchair. "Forgive me; I wuz behind the curtain a-catchin' the last daylight on these slippers, and I overheard your talk. I will do jest as you say, for my heart is breakin', Aunt Samantha," sez she. They always auntied and uncled us, our children did, Fidelia's and mine. "I will do jest what you tell me