“No, we wont!” says six warm voices, awful warm.
APPARIENTLY WELCOME.
“Sthay all thummer—do,” says the lispin’ voice.
“Yes do!” says the hull seven.
And then Delila Ann threw both her arms round my neck, and says she:
“Oh if you could only stay with us always, how happy, happy we should be.” And then she laid her head right down on my shoulder and begun to sob, and weep, and cry; I was almost sickened to the stomach by their actin’ and behavin’, but the voice of sorrow always appeals to my heart. I see in a minute what the matter was; Lank had give out, had killed himself with hard work; and though I knew she was jest as much to blame as if she was made of arsenic and Lank had swallered her, still pity and sympathy makes the handsomest, shineyest kind of varnish to cover up folks’es faults with, and Delila Ann shone with it from head to foot, as she lay there on my neck, wettin’ my best collar with her tears, and almost tearin’ the lace offen it with her deep windy sithes. I pitied Delila Ann, from pretty near the bottom of my heart; I forgot for the time bein’ her actin’ and behavin’; I felt bad, and says I:
“Then he is gone Delila Ann, I feel to sympathize with you; I am sorry for you as I can be.”
“Yes,” says she, pretty near choked up with emotion, “he is gone; we have lost him.”
I wept; I thought of my Josiah, and I says in tremblin’ tones: “When love is lost out of a heart that has held it, oh, what a goneness there must be in that heart; what a emptyness; what a lonesomeness; but,” says I, tryin’ to comfort her, “He who made our hearts knows all about ’em; His love can fill all the deep lonesome places in ’em; and hearts that He dwells in wont never break; He keeps ’em, and they are safe with an eternal safety.”