"I hadn't that pleasure. Who was she?"

"She was my wife. She's been sick some time. But day before yesterday
she was took worse, and she kep' on sinking until evening, when she
gave a kinder sudden jump a couple of times, and then her spirit
flickered. Dead, you know. Passed away into another world."

"I'm very sorry."

"So am I. And I called around to see if I couldn't get some of
you literary people to get out some kind of a poem describing her
peculiarities, so that I can advertise her in the paper."

"I dunno; maybe we might."

[Illustration: MR. SMITH'S GRIEF]

"Oh, you didn't know her, you say? Well, she was a sing'lar kinder
woman. Had strong characteristics. Her nose was the crookedest in the
State--all bent around sideways. Old Captain Binder used to say that
it looked like the jibsail of an oyster-sloop on the windward tack.
Only his fun, you know. But Helen never minded it. She said herself
that it aimed so much around the corner that whenever she sneezed
she blew down her back hair. There were rich depths of humor in that
woman. Now, I don't mind if you work into the poem some picturesque
allusion to the condition of her nose, so her friends will recognize
her. And you might also spend a verse or two on her defective eye."

"What was the matter with her eye?"