MI DEER WYF,--Kum hum, I hav got a crik in mi bak. Kum hum, mi deer Sam, kum hum, or I shal xpire. Mi gord has withurd, mi plan has faled, I am a undun Josire. Tung kant xpres mi yernin to see u. I kant tak no kumfort lookin at ure kam fisiognimy in ure fotogrof, it maks mi hart ake, u luk so swete, I fere u hav caut a bo. Kum hum, kum hum. Ure luvin kompanien, JOSIRE. vers ov poetry. Mi krik is bad, mi ink is pale: Mi luv for u shal never fale. I dropt my knife and fork (I had got about through eatin', anyway), and hastened to my room. Cicely followed me, anxious-eyed, for I looked bad. I dropped into a chair; and almost buryin' my face in my white linen handkerchief, I give vent to some moans of anguish, and a large number of sithes. And Cicely says,-- “What is the matter, aunt Samantha?” And I says,-- “Your poor uncle! your poor uncle!” “What is the matter with him?” says she. And I says, “He is crazy as a loon. Crazy and got a creek, and I must start for home the first thing in the mornin'.” [Illustration: SAMANTHA'S SORROW.] She says, “What do you mean?” and then I showed her the letter, and says as I did so,-- “He has had too much strain on his mind, for the size of it. His plans have been too deep. He has grappled with too many public questions. I ortn't to have left him alone with politics. But I left him for his good. But never, never, will I leave that beloved man agin, crazy, or no crazy, creek, or no creek. “Oh!” says I, “will he never, never more be conscious of the presence of the partner of his youth and middle age? Will he never realize the deep, constant love that has lightened up our pathway?” I wept some. But I thought that mebby he would know my cream biscuit and other vittles, I felt that he would re_cog_nise them. But by this time Cicely had got the letter read through; and she said “he wuzn't crazy, it was the new-fashioned way of spelling;” she said she had seen it; and so I brightened up, and felt well: though, as I told her,-- “The creek would drive me home in the mornin'.” Says I, “Duty and Love draws me, a willin' captive, to the side of my sufferin' Josiah. I shall go home on that creek.” Says I, “Woman's first duty is to the man she loves.” Says I, “I come here on that duty, and on that duty I shall go back, and the creek.” Cicely didn't feel as if she could go the next day, for there was to be a great meetin' of the friends of temperance, in a few days, there; and she wanted to attend to it; she wanted to help all she could; and then, there wus a person high in influence that she wanted to converse with on the subject. That good little thing was willin' to do _any thing_ for the sake of the boy and the Right. But I says to her, “I _must_ go, for that word 'plan' worrys me; it worrys me far more than the creek: and I see my partner is all unstrung, and I must be there to try to string him up agin.”