But I didn't say nothin' only to reiterate my utterance, that "if
he went into it, he would have to foller it up alone, that he
musn't expect any help from me."

"Oh no!" says he. "Oh! certainly not."

His tone wuz very genteel, but there seemed to be sumthin' strange
in it. And I looked at him pityin'ly over my specks. The hull
idea on it wuz extremely distasteful to me, this talk about
flirtin', and etc., at our ages, and with our stations in the
Jonesville meetin' house, and with our grandchildren.

But I see from day to day that he wuz a hankerin' after it, and I
almost made up my mind that I should have to let him make a trial,
knowin' that experience wuz the best teacher, and knowin' that his
morals wuz sound, and he wuz devoted to me, and only went into the
enterprize because he thought it wuz fashionable.

There wuz a young English girl a boardin' to the same place we
did. She dressed some like a young man, carried a cane, etc. But
she wuz one of the upper 10, and wuz as pretty as a picture, and I
see Josiah had kinder sot his eyes on her as bein' a good one to
try his experiment with. He thought she wuz beautiful. But good
land! I didn't care. I liked her myself. But I could see, though
he couldn't see it, that she wuz one of the girls who would flirt
with the town pump, or the meetin' house steeple, if she couldn't
get nobody else to flirt with. She wuz born so, but I suppose
ontirely unbeknown to her when she wuz born.

Wall, Josiah Allen would set and look at her by the hour --