“Well there now!” was the reply; “that gal--I didn’t think o’ her. She don’t da’s’t talk about ye to hum, ye know, but w’en she’s away she kind o’ finds opportetunities to discuss the subjec’. ’Twa’n’t but last week she says to me over to Williams’s place, says she, ‘It’s awful lonesome without Joe,’ she says. ‘I wisht he’d come back an’ be a good boy,’ says she. ‘Aint it sad about his goin’ away so?’ she says. ‘Do you think he’ll come back agin soon, Uncle Billy?’ says she. An’ I says, ‘No, he won’t never come back agin. He’s gone too fur,’ says I, ‘in more ways ’an one,’ says I. What ye think o’ that? Hey?”