urvive the loss of her "darling
team." O, what a loss was there! "The team would fetch two hundred
dollars between two brothers, and it was only last month the new wagon
cost seventy or eighty dollars; and all now gone."

"What a misfortune that I went out to hear that preacher at all on the
Sabbath!" said Gulvert. "Had I remained at home, or walked down to
meeting, I would be three hundred dollars richer to-day than I am now."

"Pa, where were the two Paddies, Pete and Bill, that they did not mind
the team while you were in meeting?" said young Harry.

"Hang the cusses, Harry! They wanted to hear the preacher, too,"
answered the father.

"If I were you, pa," said little Libby, "I would keep the price of the
hosses out of Pete and Bill's wages, the ugly fellows, that did not mind
and keep the team from running away."

"That would be but sarving 'em right, Lib," said her mother, heaving a
sigh.

"Yes, wife," said Gulvert, "that I would gladly do; but you know they
are in my debt. I will be glad enough if they wait to work out the money
that I have advanced them."

"You didn't _advance_ them money, did you, Gulvert?" said his wife.

"Yes, I did that," said he, "by the advice of that old fool Parson
Waistcoat, who expected, as he succeeded in converting Pete and Bill
Kurney, that he would also convert the rest of their friends, if they
were out here from Popish Ireland."

"O Gulvert," said his better half, sobbing again anew, "you will kill
me! I cannot live with you, that is the amount of it! How dare you, sir,
lend money, or dispose, of my means, without first having consulted me!
I lay my death at your door!" she added, in a sharp, angry tone.

"Dear wife, don't blame me----"

"Away, old man!" she interrupted, "away, and leave me here to despair! I
fear I will never again leave this bed; and if I find myself able, I
shall never after spend a day in your house, but go back to my native
state, and take out a bill of divorce against a man who knows nothing
but to spend and squander the means of his family."

"O ma," said Libby, "do go away from father, the ugly fool, and I will
go with you, won't I?"

"He ain't nothing else, sis," said she, "but a poor ugly fool, a
shiftless, good-for-nothing old man. O, me! O, me! I could easily have
known that this would be the case, from the dreams I had for two
nights."

"I had a dream too, ma," said sis, who, though only going in her eighth
year, was perfectly well v