CHAPTER XIX.

         CHAPTER XX.

         CHAPTER XXI.

         CHAPTER XXII.

   CHAPTER XVIII.

   Josiah's face wuz smooth and placid, he hadn't took a mite of sense of what I had been a-sayin', and I knew it. Men don't. They know at the most it is only

    talk

   , wimmen hain't got it in their power to

    do

   anything. And I s'pose they reason on it in this way—a little wind storm is soon over, it relieves old Natur and don't hurt anything.

   Yes, my pardner's face wuz as calm as the figger on the outside of the almanac a-holdin' the bottle, and his axent wuz mildly wonderin' and gently sarcestickle.

   "How a steeple would look a-pintin' down! That is a true woman's idee."

   Sez I, "I would have it a-pintin' down towards the depths of darkness that wuz in that man's heart that roze it up, and the infamy of the deed that kep him in the meetin' house and turned his victim out of it."

   "I d'no as she wuz his victim," sez Josiah.

   Sez I, "Every one knows that in the first place Simeon Lathers wuz the man that led her astray."

   "It wuzn't proved," sez Josiah, a-turnin' the almanac over and lookin' at the advertisement on the back side on't.

   "And why wuzn't it proved?" sez I, "because he held a big piece of gold against the mouths of the witnesses."

   "I didn't see any in front of my mouth," sez Josiah, lookin' 'shamed but some composed.

   "And you know what the story wuz," sez he, "accordin' to that, he did it all to try her 

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