[Illustration: PAUL SHOOTING HIS FRIEND.]

Awful deed! Dreadful fate! But no worse, as I told Josiah when he wus a
groanin' over it; no worse, I told the children when they was a cryin'
over it; no worse, I told my own heart when the tears wus a runnin' down
my face like rain-water,--no worse because Cicely happened to be our
relation, and we loved her as we did our own eyes.

And our broad land is _full_ of jest such sufferin's, jest such
crimes, jest such disgrace, caused by the same cause;--as I told Josiah,
suffering, disgrace, and crime made legal and protected by the law.

And Josiah squirmed as I said it; and I see him squirm, for he believed in
it: he believed in licensing this shame and disgrace and woe; he believed
in makin' it respectable, and wrappin' round it the mantilly of the law,
to keep it in a warm, healthy, flourishin' condition. Why, he had helped
do it himself; he had helped the United States lift up the mantilly; he
had voted for it.

He squirmed, but turned it off by usin' his bandana hard, and sayin', in a
voice all choked down with grief,--

"Oh, poor Cicely! poor girl!"

"Yes," says I, "'poor girl!' and the law you uphold has made her; 'poor
girl'--has killed her; for she won't live through it, and you and the
United States will see that she won't."

He squirmed hard; and my feelin's for him are such that I can't bear to