nd told
us all about the miracles and prophecies and their fulfilment. The old
gentleman with the cane took a part in the conversation, and the hoosier
listened, without ever opening his head.

"'I've just heard of a gentleman,' says the preacher, 'that's been to
the Holy Land and went over the Bible country. It's astonishin' to hear
what wonderful things he has seen. He was at Sodom and Gomorrow, and
seen the place whar Lot's wife fell.'

"'Ah!' says the old gentleman with the cane.

"'Yes,' says the preacher; 'he went to the very spot; and, what's the
remarkablest thing of all, he seen the pillar of salt what she was
turned into.'

"'Is it possible!' says the old gentleman.

"'Yes, sir; he seen the salt, standin' thar to this day.'

"'What!' says the hoosier, 'real genewine, good salt?'

"'Yes, sir, a pillar of salt, jest as it was when that wicked woman was
punished for her disobedience.'

"All but the gambler, who was snoozing in the corner of the coach,
looked at the preacher,--the hoosier with an expression of countenance
that plainly told us that his mind was powerfully convicted of an
important fact.

"'Right out in the open air?' he asked.

"'Yes, standin' right in the open field, whar she fell.'

"'Well, sir,' says 'Indiany,' 'all I've got to say is, if she'd dropped
in our parts, the cattle would have licked her up afore sundown!'

"The preacher raised both his hands at such an irreverent remark, and
the old gentleman laughed himself into a fit of asthmatics, what he
didn't get over till we came to the next change of horses. The hoosier
had played the mischief with the gravity of the whole party; even the
old maid had to put her handkerchief to her face, and the young lady's
eyes were filled with tears for half an hour afterward. The old preacher
hadn't another word to say on the subject; but whenever we came to any
place, or met anybody on the road, the circus-man nursed the thing along
by asking what was the price of salt."

A RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT

BY KATE FIELD

I once heard a bright child declare that if circuses were prohibited in
heaven, she did not wish to go there. She had been baptized, was under
Christian influences, and, previous to this heterodoxy, had never given
her good parents a moment's anxiety. Her naive utterance touched a
responsive chord within my own breast, for well did I remember how
gloriously the circus shone by the light of other days; how the
ring-master,