He sort of smiled with his eyes.  He wuz used to such talk, I spoze.  Good land! the wimmen all made perfect fools of themselves about him.

But he sez in his pleasant way, “I shall be very glad to meet your niece.  I shall be sure to like her, if she is any like her aunt.”

Pretty admirin’ talk, that wuz.  But good land!  Josiah sot right there, and he wuzn’t jealous a mite.  Mr. Freeman wuz young enough to be my boy, anyway.  And then Josiah knew what I had in my mind.

But I told my pardner that night, sez I—­

“I hain’t mentioned Mr. Freeman’s name to Isabelle, and hain’t a-goin’ to; for one reason, she wouldn’t come nigh the house if she knew what I wuz a-thinkin’ on, and for another reason, I am a-goin’ to try to stop a-thinkin’ on’t.  He took it so beautiful, and he has match-makers a-besettin’ him so much, I dare presoom to say he mistrusted what I wuz up to in my own mind.  And, like as not, Isabelle wouldn’t look at him, or any other man, anyway.

“But I wouldn’t have thought on’t in the first place,” sez I, “if Isabelle hadn’t been such a born angel, and seemed cut out a purpose for him by Providence.  But I shall try to stop a-thinkin’ on’t.”

And sez Josiah, “You had better have done that in the first place.”

Wall, I wuz as good as my word.  I didn’t say another word pro nor con.  But I kep up a-thinkin’ inside of me, bein’ but mortal, and havin’ two eyes in my head.

Wall, as I say, finally Gertrude Plank had left her room vacant, and our niece had come to us with a cheerful face and one small trunk full of neccessaries for her week’s visit.

I call her our niece, though she wuzn’t quite that relationship to us.  But it is quite hard sometimes to git the relationship headed right, and marshal ’em out into company before you—­specially when they are fifth or sixth cousins.

And I thought, bein’ our ages wuz such, and our affections wuz so strong, back and forth, that it would be jest as well to jest use that plain term aunt and uncle and niece—­it looked better, anyway, as our ages stood.  And I didn’t think it wuz anything wrong, for good land! we are called uncle and aunt, my Josiah and me are, by lots of folks that hain’t no sort of kin to us, and Isabelle wuz related to us anyway by kin and by soul ties.

Wall, to resoom:  the evenin’ after Isabelle got there it wuz burnin’ warm in my room.  And her room wuz still worse, way up on top of the house; but it wuz the best room that we could git for her, and she wuz contented with it for the sake of bein’ with her Uncle Josiah and me.

After we got up from the supper-table—­Mr. Freeman wuz away that day, but I felt free to take her into that big, cool room, and so we went into that beautiful place.

And then, all of a sudden, as Isabelle stood there in front of that pretty girl down by the medder brook amongst the deep grasses—­