"I can't arrest a 'coon, madam!" exclaimed the sheriff, red in the neck
at being made ridiculous.

"Then arrest the carpenter!" cried poor, unhappy, excited Mrs. Walters,
bursting into tears and hiding her face on Georgiana's shoulder.

And among us all Georgiana was the only comforter. She laid aside her
own work for that day, spent the rest of it as Samaritan to her
desperately wounded neighbor, and at nightfall, over the bed, now
peaceful and snowy once more, she spread a marvellous priceless quilt
that she had long been making to exhibit at the approaching World's
Fair in New York.

"Georgiana," I said, as I walked home with her at bedtime, "it seems to
me that things happen in order to show you off."

"Only think!" Georgiana replied; "she will never get into bed again
without a shiver and a glance at the chimney. I begrudge her the quilt
for one reason: it has a piece of one of your old satin waistcoats in
it."

"Did she tell you that she had had those bedclothes ever since her
marriage?"

"Yes; but I have always felt that she couldn't have been married very
long."

"How long should you think?"