g-box and hardly a coat to his back. He went mad upon the
strength of it. But never mind, Peter; it is just the sort of capital
for building castles in the air."

"The house will be down about our ears," cried Tabitha as the wind
shook it with increasing violence.

"Let it fall," said Peter, folding his arms, as he seated himself upon
the chest.

"No, no, my old friend Peter!" said John Brown. "I have house-room for
you and Tabby, and a safe vault for the chest of treasure. To-morrow
we will try to come to an agreement about the sale of this old house;
real estate is well up, and I could afford you a pretty handsome
price."

"And I," observed Peter Goldthwaite, with reviving spirits, "have a
plan for laying out the cash to great advantage."

"Why, as to that," muttered John Brown to himself, "we must apply to
the next court for a guardian to take care of the solid cash; and if
Peter insists upon speculating, he may do it to his heart's content
with old Peter Goldthwaite's treasure."

CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.

Passing a summer several years since at Edgartown, on the island of
Martha's Vineyard, I became acquainted with a certain carver of
tombstones who had travelled and voyaged thither from the interior of
Massachusetts in search of professional employment. The speculation
had turned out so successful that my friend expected to transmute
slate and marble into silver and gold to the amount of at least a
thousand dollars during the few months of his sojourn at Nantucket and
the Vineyard. The secluded life and the simple and primitive spirit
which still characterizes the inhabitants of those islands, especially
of Martha's Vineyard, insure their dead friends a longer and dearer
remembrance than the daily novelty and revolving bustle of the world
can elsewhere afford to beings of the past. Yet, while every family is
anxious to erect a memorial to its departed members, the untainted
breath of Ocean bestows such health and length of days upon the people
of the isles as would cause a melancholy dearth of business to a
resident artist in that line. His own monument, recording his decease
by starvation, would probably be an early specimen of his skill.
Gravestones, therefore, have generally been an article of imported
merchandise.

In my walks through the burial-ground of Edgartown--where the dead
have lain so long that the soil, once enriched by their decay, has
returned to its original barrenness--in that a