The mineral water, they say, told awfully, and it went against Tirzah Ann’s stomach so, that she couldn’t hardly get down a tumblerful a day; she wus always dretful dainty and sort o’ delicate-like. But Mrs. Skidmore bein’ so tough, could drink seven tumblersful right down. And it seems she acted sort o’ overbearin’ and haughty, because Tirzah Ann couldn’t drink so much as she could. And put on airs about it. And Tirzah Ann couldn’t stand that, so one day, it wus the day before she came home, she said to herself that Mrs. Skidmore shouldn’t have that to feel big over no longer, so she drinked down five tumblersful, and wus a-tryin’ to get down the other two, when she wus took sick sudden and violent, and I s’pose a sicker critter never lived than she wus. It acted on her like a emetic, and she had all the symptoms of billerous colic. I s’pose they wus awful skairt about her, and she was skairt about herself; she thought she wus a-dyin’, and she made Whitfield promise on a Testament to carry her, the next day, to Janesville, alive or dead. So he wus as good as his word, and brought her home, the next day, on a bed. They got round the house in a day or two, but they have been laid up for repairs (as you may say,) ever sense. They are sick critters, now, both on ’em. Never, never, did I see such awful effects from rest and recreation before. As they both say, one week’s more rest would have finished ’em for this world. And besides these outside sufferin’s that are plain to be seen, there are innurd hurts that are fur worse. Outside bruises and hurts can be reached with arneky and wormwood, but how can you bathe a wounded sperit, or rub it with hot flannel? You can’t do it. Now, this that I am goin’ to say now, I wouldn’t have get round for the world—it _must be kept_! But seein’ I am on this subject, I feel it to be my duty to tell the truth, and the hull truth. But it musn’t go no further: it must be kept. Tirzah Ann didn’t tell this right out to me, but I gathered it from little things I heard her and Whitfield say, and from what others said who wus there. If I didn’t feel it to be my bounden duty to write the truth, and if it wusn’t for its bein’ a solemn warnin’ to them who may have felt a hankerin’ toward goin’ off on a trip, I couldn’t write out the awful words. But it must be kept. I mistrust, and almost know, that Tirzah Ann flirted—flirted with a man! You see Mrs. Skidmore, wantin’ to appear fashionable and genteel, flirted with men, and I know jest as well as I want to know, that Tirzah Ann did, not wantin’ to be outdone. I know she and Whitfield quarreled, dretfully, for the first time in their lives; that I had right from her own mouth. But she didn’t tell me what it wus about; she looked sort o’ sheepish and weakin’, and turned the subject, and I hain’t one to pump.