divided it into three unequal parts, and took three quarters
of a yard for herself, three quarters for her sister, and gave
the remaining half-yard to her daughter, and that at very
moment there are two women and a little girl taking their walks
abroad under the silken shadows of my veil! And yet there are
people who profess to disbelieve in total depravity.

Nor did the veil walk away alone. My trunk became imbued with
the spirit of adventure, and branched off on its own account
up somewhere into Vermont. I suppose it would have kept on and
reached perhaps the North Pole by this time, had not Crene's
dark eyes,--so pretty to look at that one instinctively feels
they ought not to be good for anything, if a just impartiality
is to be maintained, but they are,--had not Crene's dark eyes
seen it tilting into a baggage-crate, and trundling off towards
the Green Mountains, but too late. Of course there was a
formidable hitch in the programme. A court of justice was
improvised on the car-steps. I was the plaintiff, Crene chief
evidence, baggage-master both defendant and examining-counsel.
The case did not admit of a doubt. There was the little
insurmountable check, whose brazen lips could speak no lie.

"Keep hold of that," whispered Crene, and a yoke of oxen could
not have drawn it from me.

"You are sure you had it marked for Fontdale," says Mr.
Baggage-master.

I hold the impracticable check before his eyes in silence.