He paused deeply agitated, and says he. “In their name I will hear you, what is your request Betsey Bobbet?”
She clasped her hands in a devotional way, and with as beseechin’ and almost heart meltin’ a look as a dog will give to a bone held above its head, she murmured,
“A lock of youh haih deah man, that I may look at it when the world looks hollow to me, a lock of youh haih to make my life path easier to me.”
I turned my spectacles on which principle sot enthroned, towards ’em, and listened in awful deep interest to see how it would end. Would he yield or not? He almost trembled. But finally he spoke.
“Never! Betsey Bobbet! never!” and he continued in low, agitated tones, “I have got jest enough to look well now.”
My heart throbbed proudly, to see him comin’ so nobly through the hot furnace of temptation, without bein’ scorched. To see him bein’ lifted up in the moral steelyards, and found full weight to a notch. But alas! Jest as small foxes will gnaw into a grape vine, jest so will dangerous and almost loose principles gnaw into a noble and upright nature unbeknown to them.
Agin Betsey says in harrowin’ tones, at the same time ketchin’ holt of his coat skirts wildly,
“If you can’t part with any more, give me one haih, to make my life path smootheh.”
