I can stick to it if you'll back me up, Nan." "There ain't much to me nowaday," said Mrs.Kimper, after a moment or two of blank staring as she held her chin in her hands and rested her elbows on her knees.

"Once I had an idee I was about as lively as they make 'em, but things has knocked it out of me,--a good many kind of things." "I know it, poor gal," said Sam; "I know it: I feel a good deal the same way myself sometimes; but it helps me along an' stren'thens me up, like, to know that Him that the visitor in jail told me about didn't have no home a good deal of the time, an' not overmuch to eat, an' yet was cheerful like, an' always on His nerve.

It braces a fellow up to think somebody's who's been as bad off as himself has pulled through, an' not stole nothin', nor fit with nobody, nor got drunk, but always was lookin' out for other folks.

Say, Nan, 'pears to me it's gettin' dark all of a sudden--oh!" The exclamation was called out by the cause of the sudden darkness, which was no other than Deacon Quickset, who had reached the door-way without being heard.

The deacon's proportions were generous; those of the door were not.
"Samuel," said the deacon, "you said this afternoon that you were a changed man, and that you were leaning on a strength greater than your own.