Mr. Sanders regarded him with unfeigned astonishment: "Why, what have I said, Jonas? Think it over! Is it doin' you wrong for me to say that more than nine-tenths of the little children in the world is lonesome? Does it hurt you when I say that Cordelia, your sister, was a 'oman among ten thousand? If these sayin's hurt you, Jonas, you must have a mortal tender conscience or a mighty thin skin. I've allers had the idee that you ain't a bit wuss than you look to be; do you want me to change my mind? Was thar ever under the blue sky a lonesomer gal than Cordelia, or one easier to love? Did you love her as you ought? Did you treat her right ever' day in the year? Did she ever have a good time of your makin'? An' in spite of it, didn't she keep on gittin' nicer and nicer, an' purtier an' purtier, tell bimeby, along come a young feller--as good a man as ever trod shoe leather--an' snatched her right from under your wing? An' didn't William H. Sanders, late of said county, show the young fellow how, an' when, an' whar to snatch her?" "Did--did you do that, Sanders? Well, I'm glad I didn't know it at the time, for I am afraid I'd have shot you." "Shot me!" exclaimed Mr. Sanders, his blue eyes beaming innocently. "Well, I've seed a good many quare things in my day an' time, but I've yit to see the gun that could go off ahead of mine--not when thar was any needcessity. You say you'd 'a' shot me; an' what did I do? I holp Cordelia to the fust an' last taste of happiness she ever had in this world. Did you ever do that much for her? You give her her vittles an' cloze--sech as they was--but do plain vittles an' plain cloze make anybody happy? Ef they do, then this old ball we 're walkin' on--when we ain't fallin' down--must be runnin' over wi' happiness. Why, Jonas, you wouldn't let the gal have no kind of company, male or female; she couldn't go out, bekaze she had nobody for to take her; one little picnic was all the gwine out she done arter she fell in your hands. I tuck her to that an' I never was as glad of anything in my life as I was when she an' Dick Lumsden made up the'r little misunderstandin' that you had been the occasion of, an' had connived at, an' nursed like it was a baby. "Well, they run away an' got married, an' went to housekeepin' not forty yards from your door--an' you seen 'em ever' day of the world, an' yit you done like you didn't know they was in town. An' wuss 'n that," Mr. Sanders continued, his anger rising as he stirred the embers of recollection--"wuss'n that, you never spoke a word to Cordelia from that day tell the day she died--an' she your own sister! It's a mighty good thing that Lumsden was well off while the war lasted. When it ended, he was as poor as I was. He had land, but who kin eat land? Thar wa'n't but one reely rich man in the community, Jonas, an' that man was you. You had bought up all the gold for a hundred mile aroun', but not so much as a thrip did Cordelia ever git out'n you.