Here Josiah Allen give me a look sharp enough to take my head clear off,
if looks could behead anybody. But they can't.

And I kept right on, calm and serene, and sez I, "It wuz very full of
beautiful idees, as full of 'em as a rose-bush is full of sweetness in
June, but," says I, "if I speak at all I must tell the truth, and I must
say that while your lecture is as sweet and beautiful a effort as I ever
see tackled, full of beautiful thoughts, and eloquence, still I must say
that in my opinion it lacked one thing, it wuzn't mean enough."

"Mean enough?" sez she. "What do you mean?"

"Why," sez I, "I mean, mean temperature, you know, middleinness,
megumness, and whatever you may call it; you go too fur."

She said with a modest look "that she guessed she didn't, she guessed
she didn't go too far."

And Josiah Allen spoke up, cross as a bear, and, sez he, "I know she
didn't. She didn't say a word that wuzn't gospel truth."

Sez I, "Married life is the happiest life in my opinion; that is, when
it is happy. Some hain't happy, but at the same time the happiest of 'em
hain't _all_ happiness."

"It is," sez Josiah (cross and surly), "it is, too."

[Illustration: "YOU GO TOO FUR."]

And Serena Fogg said, gently, that she thought I wuz mistaken, "she