AN EXCELLENT TEST OF AFFECTION.
“The summer is no time to try the strength of affection,”
said Mrs. Partington; “though it 's pretty well
to sing love songs beneath a window at midnight, in a
rain-storm, or stand billing and cooling on the door-step
till two o'clock in the morning. The winter season is
the one. Many 's the time my poor Paul has rid five
miles to see me, the coldest weather; and often, the dear
cretur has been found in the morning fast asleep in the
middle of the cow-yard, with the saddle on his own
shoulders, from fatigue with courting me, and riding a
hard-trotting horse. There was devotion! I never see
a cow without thinking of poor Paul;” and, saying
which, the good old lady went to bed.