used expression playing on his face. In point of fact, this New
Jerusalem vision was affording the utmost merriment to Peckaby and a few
more husbands. Peckaby had come home to his tea, which meal it was the
custom of Deerham to enjoy about three o'clock. He saw no signs of its
being in readiness; and, but for the presence of Mr. Verner, might
probably have expressed his opinion demonstratively upon the point.
Peckaby, of late, appeared to have changed his nature and disposition.
From being a timid man, living under wife-thraldom, he had come to
exercise thraldom over her. How far Mrs. Peckaby's state of low spirits,
into which she was generally sunk, may have explained this, nobody knew.

"I have had a turn, Peckaby. I caught sight of a white tail a-going by,
and I thought it might be the quadruple a-coming for me. I was shook, I
can tell you. 'Twas more nor an hour ago, and I've been able to do
nothing since, but sit here and weep; I couldn't redd up after that."

"Warn't it the quadrepid?" asked Peckaby in a mocking tone.

"No, it weren't," she moaned. "It were nothing but that white pony of
Farmer Blow's."

"Him, was it," said Peckaby, with affected scorn. "He is in the forge
now, he is; a-having his shoes changed, and his tail trimmed."

"I'd give a shilling to anybody as 'ud cut his tail off;" angrily
rejoined Mrs. Peckaby. "A-deceiving of me, and turning my inside all of
a quake! Oh, I wish it 'ud come! The white donkey as is to bear me to
New Jerusalem!"

"Don't you wish her joy of her journey, sir?" cried the man
respectfully, a twinkle in his eye, while she rocked herself too and
fro. "She have got a bran new gownd laid up in a old apron upstairs,
ready for the start. She, and a lot more to help her, set on and made it
in a afternoon, for fear the white donkey should arrive immediate. I
asks her, sir, how much back the gownd'll have left in him, by the time
she have rode from here to New Jerusalem."

"Peckaby, you are a mocker!" interposed his lady, greatly exasperated.
"Remember the forty-two as was eat up by bears when they mocked at
Elisher!"

"Mrs. Peckaby," said Lionel, keeping his countenance, "don't you think
you would have made more sure of the benefits of the New Jerusalem, had
you started with the rest, instead of depending upon the arrival of the
white donkey?"

"They started without her, sir," cried the man, laughing from ear to
ear. "They give her the slip, while she were a-bed and aslee