But she fooled me all over the face and eyes, and took up with that hell-hound of a trader, Lukens; an' he gave her a chance to live easy, to wear fine clothes, an' be waited on like a lady.

I thought at first I would go crazy, but my poor mammy did all she could to comfort me.

She would tell me there were as good fish in the sea as were ever caught out of it.

Many a time I've laid my poor head on her lap, when it seemed as if my brain was on fire and my heart was almost ready to burst.

But in course of time I got over the worst of it; an' Mirandy is the first an' last woman that ever fooled me.