Tirzah Ann burst right out a-crying, and says she: “Mother, one week’s more rest would have tuckered me completely out; I should have died off.” I wiped my own spectacles, I was so affected, and says I, in choked up axents: “You know I told you just how it would be; I told you you was happy enough to home, and you hadn’t better go off in search of rest or of pleasure.” And says she, breakin’ right down agin, “One week more of such pleasure and recreation, would have been my death blow.” Says I, “I believe it, I believe you; you couldn’t have stood another mite of rest and recreation, without it’s killin’ of you—anybody can see that by lookin’ at your mean.” But says I, knowin’ it wus my duty to be calm, “It is all over now, Tirzah Ann; you hain’t got to go through it agin; you must try to overcome your feelin’s. Tell your ma all about it. Mebby it will do you good, in the words of the him, ‘Speak, and let the worst be known. Speakin’ may relieve you.’” And I see, indeed, that she needed relief. Wall, she up and told me the hull on it. And I found out that Mrs. Skidmore wus to the bottom of it all—she, and Tirzah Ann’s ambition. I could see that them wus to blame for the hull on it. Mrs. Skidmore is the wife of the other lawyer in Janesville; they moved there in the spring. She wus awful big feelin’, and wus determined from the first to lead the fashion—tried to be awful genteel and put on sights of airs. And Tirzah Ann bein’ ambitius, and knowin’ that she looked a good deal better than Mrs. Skidmore did, and knew as much agin, and knowin’ that Whitfield wus a better lawyer than her husband wus, and twice as well off, wusn’t goin’ to stand none of her airs. Mrs. Skidmore seemed to sort o’ look down on Tirzah Ann, for she never felt as I did on that subject. Now, if anybody wants to feel above me, I look on it in this light, I filosofize on it in this way: it probably does them some good, and it don’t do me a mite of hurt, so I let ’em feel. I have always made a practice of it—it don’t disturb me the width of a horse-hair. Because somebody feels as if they wus better than I am, that don’t make ’em so; if it did, I should probably get up more interest on the subject. But it don’t; it don’t make them a mite better, nor me a mite worse, so what hurt does it do anyway? As I said, it probably makes them feel sort o’ good, and I feel ferst-rate about it; jest as cool and happy and comfortable as a cluster cowcumber at sunrise. That’s the way I filosofize on it. But not studyin’ it out as I have, not divin’ into the subject so deep as I have doven, it galled Tirzah Ann to see Mrs. Skidmore put on such airs. She said: “She wus poor, and humbly, and did’t know much, and it maddened her to see her feel so big, and put on such airs.” And then I had to go deep into reeson and filosofy agin to convince her; says I: