Then there was an old lady, or indeed I am not sure that she was as
much old as antiquated and strangely out of place, who had left her
husband, and was travelling all the way to Kansas by herself. We had
to take her own word that she was married; for it was sorely
contradicted by the testimony of her appearance. Nature seemed to
have sanctified her for the single state; even the colour of her hair
was incompatible with matrimony, and her husband, I thought, should
be a man of saintly spirit and phantasmal bodily presence. She was
ill, poor thing; her soul turned from the viands; the dirty
tablecloth shocked her like an impropriety; and the whole strength of
her endeavour was bent upon keeping her watch true to Glasgow time
till she should reach New York. They had heard reports, her husband
and she, of some unwarrantable disparity of hours between these two
cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had seized on this
occasion to put them to the proof. It was a good thing for the old
lady; for she passed much leisure time in studying the watch. Once,
when prostrated by sickness, she let it run down.
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