"Yes, Ardely," he said, addressing the widow, who, in black sunbonnet and dress, occupied the front plank with her seven small children and a disconsolate-looking man, "you have a right hope of j'ining Elhannon again in the land where there hain't no widows or orphants, no sorrow or no parting or no tears, no fever or no choking-disease. Yes, I know all about hit, Ardely--twicet have I been along the lonesome road you now tread; twicet was I called upon to part with a fond companion, and to be paw and maw to my young-uns; two good women have I got in glory, and one in this mortal spere. I know how to sympathize with all widows, having been twicet a lone-lie widow myself, and a fair prospect, my present companion being puny-turned, of walking yet again in that vale of tears. Yes, Ardely, nobody knows better than me what hit is to have the heartstrings tore and frazzled, and the light of day everly put out, by affliction." The widow bowed her head and wept loudly beneath the black sunbonnet, and the seven offsprings laid their heads on her lap or on one another's shoulders and joined in the lament, as did also a number of black-bonneted women on the front seats. With the words, "I feel to take the hand of every widow here, man or woman, that has ever lost a dear companion," the preacher, stepping forward, offered a consoling hand, first to Ardelia, and then to all the other bereaved ones who pressed forward, the women weeping, the men silent, but with working faces, to clasp the understanding hands of one who could enter into the fellowship of their sufferings. The spectacle of human loss and sorrow, always a poignant one, was relieved and softened by the outpouring of this old man's sympathy and love. With tears trickling down his own cheeks, the preacher then returned to his place, to begin, in a breathless singsong, a minute history of the death-bed scenes of his two companions. During these recitations, the weeping on all sides increased to such an extent that he was again impelled to come forward and shake hands all around to assuage the storm of feeling he had raised. After returning to his place this time, it was with a different voice and manner that he spoke--sternly, and to the point.