The little nieces' Pa had gone to California after his wife's death--and hadn't been hearn from sence. The little children had been left with their grandparents and Uncle Tom to stay till their Pa got back. And as he didn't git back, of course they kept on a-stayin', and had to be took care on. They wuz bright little creeters, and the very apples of their eyes. But they cost money, and they cost love, and Tom had to give it, for they lost what little property they had about this time--and the feeble Grandma couldn't do much, and the Grandpa died not long after the eppisode I am about to relate. So it all devolved onto Tom. And Tom riz up to his duties nobly, though it wuz with a sad heart, as wuz spozed, for Isabelle, when she see what had come onto him to do, wouldn't hold him to his engagement--she insisted on his bein' free. I spoze she thought she wouldn't burden him with two more helpless ones, and then mebby she thought the two spans wouldn't mate very well. And most probable they would have been a pretty cross match. (I mean, that is, a sort of a melancholy, down-sperited yoke, and if anybody laughs at it, I would wish 'em to laugh in a sort of a mournful way.) Wall, Tom Freeman, after Isabelle sot him free, bein' partly mad and partly heart-broken, as is the way of men who are deep in love, and want their way, but anyway wantin' to keep out of the sight of the one who, if he couldn't have her for his own, he wanted to forgit--he packed up bag and baggage and went West. Isabelle wouldn't correspond with him, so she told him in that last hour--still and calm on the outside, and her heart a-bleedin' on the inside, I dare presoom to say; no, she wanted him to feel free. What creeters, what creeters wimmen be for makin' martyrs of themselves, and burnt sacrifices--sometimes I most think they enjoy it, and then agin I don't know! But Isabelle acted from a sense of duty, for she jest worshipped the ground Tom Freeman walked on, so everybody knew, and so she bid adieu to Tom and Happiness, and lived on. Wall, one of 'em must stay at home with the old folks, either she or Christopher Columbus. And when a man and a woman love each other as Isabelle and Krit did, when wuz it ever the case but what if there wuz any sacrificin' to do the woman wuz the one to do it. It is her nater, and I don't know but a real true woman takes as much comfort in bein' sort o' onhappy for the sake of some one she loves, as she would in swingin' right out and a-enjoyin' herself first rate. A woman who really loves anything has the makin' of a first-class martyr in her. And though she may not be ever tied to a stake, and gridirons be fur removed from her, still she has a sort of a silent hankerin' or aptitude for martrydom. That is, she would fur ruther be onhappy herself than to have the beloved object wretched. And if either of 'em has got to face trouble and privation, why she is the one that stands ready to face 'em.