I spoze she tried to swing out and describe it, and bust her old sides in the attempt; anyway, that is what some think.

The new crack is there, anyway.

Who'd a thought on't--a bell that has stood so many different sights, and kep herself together?
But I wuzn't surprised a mite to think it wuz too much for her--no, nobody could describe it.
[Illustration: She bust her old sides in the attempt.] I know Miss Plank couldn't, for we met her there, or ruther she come onto us, as I stood stun still and nearly lost, and by the side of myself, and I felt so queer that I couldn't hardly speak to her.

I don't know but she thought I felt big and haughty, but good land! how mistook she wuz if she thought so! I felt as small as I stood there that very minute, as one drop of milk in the hull milky way.
But when my senses got kinder collected together, and my emotions got quelled down a little, I passed the usual compliments with Miss Plank--"How de do ?" and so forth.
And she proposed that we should go round a little together--she said that she had been here so many times, that she felt she could offer herself as our "Sissy Roney." She looked at Josiah as she spoke kinder kokettish, and I thought to myself, You are a-actin' pretty kittenish for a woman of your age.
"Sissy!" Sez I to myself, the time for you to be called "sissy" rightfully lays fur back in the past--as much as fifty years back, anyway.

As for the "Roney," I didn't know what she _did_ mean, but spozed it wuz some sort of a pet name that had been gin her fur away in that distant past.
And I spozed she had brung it up to kinder attract Josiah Allen; but, good land! if his morals hadn't been like iron for solidity, I knew that for her to try to flirt wuz like a old hen to try to bite; they don't have no teeth, hens don't, even when they are young, and they won't be likely to have any when they are fifty or sixty years old.