"'You just wenter!' says he, and he takes it up and slants it agin his shoulder, and turns his head kind a sideways, all the time a-keeping his eye onto me, and he seesaws and seesaws till I falls asleep into my chair, and then he seesaws and seesaws till I wakes and rubs my eyes, and still his head is kind a sideways, and his wiolin agin his shoulder, aslant like, just as if he had n't moved; and then I pertends to sleep, and I pertends and pertends and pertends, and at last pertence is clear wore out, and I wakes up like, and I says, says I, 'Dan'l, it must be a'most ten o'clock, ain't it?'—I knew it was daylight. And all at once his wisage changed, and the wiolin fairly dropt from his shoulder, and he hild up his head that had been kind a sideways all that while, and went to bed peaceable as a lamb, he did, and for the rest of the night he did n't walk into his sleep at all!"
"You angel!" says John,—"to get round him so."
"Just wait," says the widow; "there's something a-coming that 'll make you open your eyes. A-Saturday night says I, 'I feel like dancing,' says I; 'so, Dan'l, give us one of your liveliest tunes!' and with that I began to hop about like a lark. Of course he was took in, and the wiolin was n't touched; but O how he did walk into his sleep! Wisible to everybody! In wain I argued that walking into sleep was wulgar, in wain I coaxed, and in wain I cried,—though tears will sometimes prewail when nothing else will, that is, if they ain't too woluntary. Some women seems to shed 'em woluntary, and then they are not so prewailing, which it was never my case, Captain, never! I cried for sheer spite and for nothing else; it was always the way with me, especially after I was dethroned; and when tears did n't prewail, thinks says I, I must take adwice, which I took it,—adwice here and adwice there,—and one adwised one thing and one another; but the adwice I took was adwice that it liked to have landed me where I never should have seen the light of this blessed day, nor seen, nor seen, nor seen—you!"
John put both arms round her instead of one, and held her fast, lest she might vanish like a phantom.
"You seem so like a sweet wision of the night!" he said. And then he asked her what was the wicious adwice.
"I do feel as if I 'd wanish, sure enough," says the widow, "if it was n't for your wine-like arms a-holding me up so nice, for I never can repeat this part of my sufferings without being quite wanquished,—just a leetle closer, if you please; now your shoulder, so that it will catch my head if it should happen to fall. You have wisely called the adwice which I was adwised to wicious," says she; "but what will you say when you hear the adwice which I was adwised? Nerve yourself up, Captain, but don't let go of me, not the least bit, I am so liable to be wanquished by my feelings. There, that 'll do,—the dear knows it 's all because of my fear. Well, the adwice I was adwised was, as you wisely said, wicious,—indeed it was wery wicious,—and yet the woman that she adwised the adwice was a woman of wast experience,—the wife of a wiolent drinker, and the mother of fourteen children. More than this, her father had been constable once, and she wore French thread-lace altogether! Would you suppose, Captain, considering her adwantages, especially as regards her father and her laces, that she could have adwised me with adwice that it was unadwisable?"
"No, I should n't a-dreampt on 't," says the Captain; "but what was the adwice that she adwised you that warn't adwisable?"
"I really can't get my consent to tell," says the widow, "now that I 've sot out, for I never expected to reweal it to anybody, unless it was to—well, to some one that either was, or was like to be, my husband. Dear me, I've undertook too much!"
"There," says the enraptured lover; "now can't you go on?"
"I don't know," says the widow, blushing, but not withdrawing her cheek.