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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 54, 10 July 1862, Page 5 (Supplement)

How Jed missed it.-— Some folks are in tbe liabit of talking in their sleep, and Miss Betsy Wilson was of the number. This peculiarity she accidently revealed to Jedediah Jenkins, in a careless conversational way. Jedediah had just finished the recital of a matrimonial dream, in which the young lady and himself figured as hero and heroine, he having invented the same for the sake of saying, at the conclusion, it was “ too good to be true,” and by thus speaking parables, assuring the lady of that which he dare not speak plainly. “I never dream,” said Betsy, “ but I sometimes talk half the night, and tell everything I kno-w in my sleep.” “ You don't say SOS'” “Yes; I never have a secret from mother. If she wants to know anything, she pumps me after I’ve gone to bed, and I answer as honestly as if my life depended on it. That’s the reason I wouldn’t go to ride the other night. I knew she would find it out. It’s awful provoking.” Some days after this Jed called at the house, and entered the parlor unannounced, found Miss Betsy, probably overcome by the heat of the room, had fallen asleep on the sofa. How Jed, as the reader has surmised, had long felt overwhelming partiality for the young lady, and yearned to know if it was returned ; but though possessed of sufficient courage to mount “ the imminent deadly breach,” could never muster spunk enough to enquire into the state of her heart. But he now bethought himself of her professed somnambulic loquacity, and felt that the time to ascertain his fate hod come. Approaching the sofa, he whispered: “My dearest Betsy, tell me, oh, toll me the subject of your fondest affection?” The fair sleeper gave a faint sigh and responded : “I love—let me think (here you might have heard the beating of Jed’s heart though a brick wall) —I love heaven, ray country, and baked beans : but if I have one passion above all others, it is for roast onions!” The indignant lover didn’t wake her, but sloped her at once, a sadder but not a wiser man.