bosom of his family.

And I sot there all alone, and a-meditatin' on things, and a-wonderin'
what under the sun he wuz a-traipsin up to Joe Charnick's for at that
time of night, and a-worryin' some for fear he wuz a-keepin' Miss
Charnick up, and a-spozin' in my mind what Miss Charnick would do, to
get along with the meetin' house, and the Conference question, if she
wuz a member. (She is a _very_ sensible woman, Jenette Charnick is,
_very_, and a great favorite with me, and others.)

And I got to thinkin' how prosperus and happy she is now, and how much
she had went through. And I declare the hull thing come back to me, all
the strange and curius circumstances connected with her courtship and
marriage, and I thought it all out agin, the hull story, from beginnin'
to end.

The way it begun wuz--and the way Josiah Allen and me come to have any
connectin with the story wuz as follers:

Some time ago, and previus, we had a widder come to stay with us a
spell, she that wuz Tamer Shelmadine, Miss Trueman Pool that now is.

Her husband died several years ago, and left her not over and above
well off. And so she goes round a-visitin', and has went ever sense his
death. And finds sights of faults with things wherever she is, sights of
it.

Trueman wuz Josiah's cousin, on his own side, and I always made a
practice of usin' her quite well. She used to live neighbor to me before
I wuz married, and she come and stayed nine weeks.