"I like her well enough to hope she'll stay, mum," quoth he, in reply
to an inquisitive neighbor. "And for my part, Miss Prouty," he added,
nodding and winking at his questioner, "I'd like to see it fixed so
she'd alwus stay; and if the Doctor _doos_ think he can't do no
better'n to have her bimeby, when the time comes, who's a right to say
a word agin it?"
"Goodness me!" exclaimed the unwary Mrs. Prouty,--"do you mean to say
you think he's got any idea of such a thing, Bildad?"
"Yes, I _don't_ mean to say I think he's got any idee of sich a thing,
Bildad," replied Bildad himself, who took great delight in mystifying
people, and who sometimes, in order to express the most unqualified
negation, was accustomed to employ this apparently ambiguous form of
speech. "I said for _my_ part, Miss Prouty,--for _my_ part. As for the
Doctor, he'll prob'bly have his own notions, and foller 'em."
Besides these already mentioned, there was another person, who sat so
often at the Doctor's board and spent so many hours beneath his roof,
that, for the nonce, I shall reckon her among his family.
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