"Is't Obejoyful, me truant love, an inmate of this rural retreat, said a young, sweet voice, that sounded like the melody of a shingle mill.
"Nay, by my halidome he is't not. Gentle lady, on yester morn I did give him the grand bounce, and now he hath joined a hold-up outfit on the overland stage route. It pains me to tell to you this sad, sad news, for I wot ye art the damsel who erst was mashed on Obejoyful; but I cannot tell a lie; he is unworthy of you, and a cross-eyed, spavined snipe of the desert, and don't you forget it."
Then Oleander lifted up her voice to an elevation of about 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, and she wape with an exceeding great weep.
CHAPTER FOUR TIMES.
Henry Ward Beeeher let her weep till her surcharged orbs had ceased to give down, and then he brought out some valley tan that he had in the house for medicinal purposes and comforted her.
Then they got acquainted.
They sat in the gloaming, and Henry Ward Beecher turned the gas partly off, and held the hand of Oleander, and told her that Obejoyful had been a humorist on an Ohio paper, and otherwise destroyed the prospects of the absent lover in the eyes of Miss McTodd.
They looked into each other's eyes and knew that they were solid pards from that moment. Shortly afterward they rode away to the nearest justice of the peace, about 223 miles off, and were married.