The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 120, October, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 120, October, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
"Just wait," says the widow; "there's something a-coming that 'll make you
open your eyes. A-Saturday night says I, 'I feel like dancing,' says I;
'so, Dan'l, give us one of your liveliest tunes!' and with that I began to
hop about like a lark. Of course he was took in, and the wiolin was n't
touched; but O how he did walk into his sleep! Wisible to everybody! In
wain I argued that walking into sleep was wulgar, in wain I coaxed, and in
wain I cried,--though tears will sometimes prewail when nothing else will,
that is, if they ain't too woluntary. Some women seems to shed 'em
woluntary, and then they are not so prewailing, which it was never my case,
Captain, never! I cried for sheer spite and for nothing else; it was always
the way with me, especially after I was dethroned; and when tears did n't
prewail, thinks says I, I must take adwice, which I took it,--adwice here
and adwice there,--and one adwised one thing and one another; but the
adwice I took was adwice that it liked to have landed me where I never
should have seen the light of this blessed day, nor seen, nor seen, nor
seen--you!"
John put both arms round her instead of one, and held her fast, lest she
might vanish like a phantom.
"You seem so like a sweet wision of the night!" he said. And then he asked
her what was the wicious adwice.
"I do feel as if I 'd wanish, sure enough," says the widow, "if it was n't
for your wine-like arms a-holding me up so nice, for I never can repeat
this part of my sufferings without being quite wanquished,--just a leetle
closer, if you please; now your shoulder, so that it will catch my head if
it should happen to fall. You have wisely called the adwice which I was
adwised to wicious," says she; "but what will you say when you hear the
adwice which I was adwised? Nerve yourself up, Captain, but don't let go of
me, not the least bit, I am so liable to be wanquished by my feelings.
There, that 'll do,--the dear knows it 's all because of my fear. Well,
the adwice I was adwised was, as you wisely said, wicious,--indeed it was
wery wicious,--and yet the woman that she adwised the adwice was a woman of
wast experience,--the wife of a wiolent drinker, and the mother of fourteen
children. More than this, her father had been constable once, and she wore
French thread-lace altogether! Would you suppose, Captain, considering her
adwantages, especially as regards her father and her laces, that she could
have adwised me with adwice that it was unadwisable?"
"No, I should n't a-dreampt on 't," says the Captain; "but what was the
adwice that she adwised you that warn't adwisable?"
"I really can't get my consent to tell," says the widow, "now that I 've
sot out, for I never expected to reweal it to anybody, unless it was
to--well, to some one that either was, or was like to be, my husband. Dear
me, I've undertook too much!"
"There," says the enraptured lover; "now can't you go on?"
"I don't know," says the widow, blushing, but not withdrawing her cheek.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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