After breakfast the Senator begun agin on the subject, and kep’ it up. And I did feel sorry for him from the bottom of my heart, for, if you’ll believe it, as we sot there alone in the settin’ room after breakfast, that man cried—or, that is, the tears come fast into his eyes when he talked about it.
And I gin the man credit where credit wuz due; it wuzn’t the money worth of the gem that he cared for, though it wuz very valuable.
No; it wuz the memory of lovely Kate Fairfax, and the blendin’ of their two names on it, and a part of their two selves, as you may say—the curl of her golden hair twisted in with his dark locks. And all the tender memories of the happy time when she gin him this jewel with her first true love, and he gin her his hull heart. Memories bitter-sweet now as he mourned his losses.
Wall, I see the Senator wuz all melted down and broke up; and as is my way, havin’ the good of the human race on my mind and heart, and havin’ to do for ’em all the while, I see that now wuz the very time for me to tackle the relation from Delaware about a matter that I had long wanted to tackle him on, concernin’ a law of his own State—
A statute so full of burnin’ injustice, and shame, and disgrace that it wuz a wonder to me, and had been for some time, that the very stuns along the banks of the Delaware didn’t cry out to its Senators as they passed along to and from their law-makin’ expeditions.
And when he wuz a goin’ on the very worst about Raymond’s doin’ such a dretful thing, and what a irreparable loss it wuz, I spoke up, and sez I, “Why, Raymond had a right to it, didn’t he?”
“A right?” he thundered out in his agitation, “a right to throw away this priceless jewel? What do you mean, madam?”
“Why,” sez I calmly (for I wuz a workin’ for Duty and Right; and they always brace me up and keep me calm), “Raymond has passed the age of consent, hasn’t he?” He wuz a few days over seven years old.
“What!!!” cries the Senator, “what do you mean?”
“Why, children in your State can consent to their own ruin if they are over seven.”