ersed in all the arcana of the science of
interpretation. "I dreamed I saw you crying, ma," continued Lib, "and
that there was blood on the stairs, and all way up garret, and that
Shaw, my father, had spilt the blood all round."

"That's just it, sis," said her mother; "the blood signifies the death
of our 'darling team;' my crying is on account of them; and Shaw, the
fool, your father, was the cause of all this trouble, and that is why he
appeared to you to spill the blood. My dream was not so clear as yours,
but I could have guessed that something was going to be the matter."

Poor Gulvert was in great pain, in consequence, among other things, of
the oft-repeated threat of his wife to separate from him; and, to give
vent to his sorrowful reflections, he went up garret as quietly as he
could, and folding himself up in several heavy "comforters," or padded
quilts, he forgot his grief by falling into a sound sleep. Meantime Pete
and Bill Kurney, the two Irish converts of Parson Waistcoat, seeing
things in confusion, thought that now was the time for them to free
themselves forever from the hypocrisy, as well as bad board, of Mr.
Culvert; and, to add to the grief of Mrs. Gulvert, next morning they
were not to be had. These knowing fellows, hearing of Gulvert's
character, put themselves in his way, and being questioned as to the
nature of their doctrines, and finding them suitable to his taste, he
hired them, and brought them home to work on his farm. They not only
became "converts" during the first week in his house, but went to
meeting regularly, where they were complimented on their highmindedness
and independence in shaking off Popery, and got frequent chances to tell
their experience. Besides their hypocrisy, these were thorough
scoundrels; for they not only robbed their employer of the two hundred
dollars which he had advanced them to bring out their parents from the
old country, but in addition to this, and to the severity of the
punishments which their apostasy occasioned Eugene, these consummate
miscreants seduced the two sisters of Mr. Gulvert, one of them an old
maid, whom they imposed upon by their lying representations and profane
discourses. Here was a little more of the natural fruit of Mr. Gulvert's
great zeal for his sect. His two hired men were gone, without having
served one eighth of the two years they had agreed to work for the money
advanced to them; both his sisters, _pious things_, yielding to
temp