And our broad land is _full_ of jest such sufferin's, jest such crimes, jest such disgrace, caused by the same cause;--as I told Josiah, suffering, disgrace, and crime made legal and protected by the law. And Josiah squirmed as I said it; and I see him squirm, for he believed in it: he believed in licensing this shame and disgrace and woe; he believed in makin' it respectable, and wrappin' round it the mantilly of the law, to keep it in a warm, healthy, flourishin' condition. Why, he had helped do it himself; he had helped the United States lift up the mantilly; he had voted for it. He squirmed, but turned it off by usin' his bandana hard, and sayin', in a voice all choked down with grief,-- “Oh, poor Cicely! poor girl!” “Yes,” says I, “'poor girl!' and the law you uphold has made her; 'poor girl'--has killed her; for she won't live through it, and you and the United States will see that she won't.” He squirmed hard; and my feelin's for him are such that I can't bear to see him squirm voyalently, as much as I blamed him and the United States, and as mad as I was at both on 'em. So I went to cryin' agin silently under my linen handkerchief, and he cried into his bandana. It wus a awful blow to both on us. Wall, she lived, Cicely did, which was more than we any one of us thought she could do. I went right there, and stayed six weeks with her, hangin' right over her bed, night and day; and so did his mother,--she a brokenhearted woman too. Her heart broke, too, by the United States; and so I told Josiah, that little villain that got killed was only one of his agents. Yes, her heart was broke; but she bore up for Cicely's sake and the boy's. For it seemed as if she felt remorsful, and as if it was for them that belonged to him who had ruined her life, to help her all they could. Wall, after about three weeks Cicely begun to live. And so I wrote to Josiah that I guessed she would keep on a livin' now, for the sake of the boy. And so she did. And she got up from that bed a shadow,--a faint, pale shadow of the girl that used to brighten up our home for us. She was our sweet Cicely still. But she looked like that posy after the frost has withered it, and with the cold moonlight layin' on it. Good and patient she wuz, and easy to get along with; for she seemed to hold earthly things with a dretful loose grip, easy to leggo of 'em. And it didn't seem as if she had any interest at all in life, or care for any thing that was a goin' on in the world, till the boy wus about four years old; and then she begun to get all rousted up about him and his future. “She _must_ live,” she said: “she had got to live, to do something to help him in the future.” [Illustration: CICELY AND THE BOY.]