have been allowed! Did not the
deacons turn him out?' exclaimed Mrs. Hunesley, in great astonishment.

"'Turn him out! Why, Madam, he was a deacon himself, and the most
popular man in the parish.'

"'Well, I had no idea that such things had ever been permitted in this
country! I should have supposed that the fear of such an example on the
young would have induced people to keep him in confinement.'

"'Good heavens, Madam!' remonstrated the Colonel, roused to a desperate
vindication of the family-honor, 'let me tell you that his excellent
influence on the young was the crowning virtue of his character. He used
to go about town with his pockets filled with nuts and gingerbread to
reward them when they were good.'

"'It is enough,' replied the lady; 'our views of propriety are so
totally different that we will not pursue the subject. I will only say
that--really--in that dress, _I don't see where he could have had any
pockets!_'"

Deacon Reyner laughed heartily at these strictures upon the proprieties
of his predecessor, and said,--

"Of course, the last remark must have brought about an explanation."

"Why, yes," said Colonel Prowley; "but when we see how slight an
accident resolved the mystery, we should receive with doubt much of the
personal scandal which is tossing about the world."

The clergyman assented very cordially to this proposition, and added,
that it was a reflection that those of his flock then present would do
well to bear in mind that very evening at Doctor Dastick's bone-party.

I confess to being a little startled at the spectral name of this
entertainment, and began to puzzle myself whether the Doctor gave
a levee to rapping spirits, or moralized over the skulls in his
collection, like Hamlet in the church-yard. Miss Hurribattle seemed
wandering in the mazes of a similar perplexity, and finally said,--

"What is a bone-party? Is it given out of compliment to the dead or the
living?"

"Nay," said the Deacon, "I don't see how it could be much of a
compliment to the dead."

"Except upon the principle, _De mortuis nil, nisi bone 'em!_" suggested
Miss Hurribattle, with such perfect gravity that neither Miss Prowley
nor the clergyman suspected the jocular atrocity that was hidden in her
speech.

"The bone-parties of old Doctor Dastick," explained the Colonel, "are
entertainments peculiar to Foxden; and as there is to be one this
evening to which we are all invited, any anticipation of the div