she is," replied the singularly
calm Amos Frump. "A moment more, and she will be out of her fainting
spell. I've seed her very often this way before."

Mr. Frump's prediction was verified; for his lips had scarcely closed on
the words, when Mrs. Frump opened her eyes, and feebly said, "Is it
a dream?"

"No, Gusty," replied the composed Amos; "it is a husband come back from
Californy, with fifty thousand dollars."

"It is--it is my own 'husband's voice!" cried Mrs. Frump, throwing
herself impulsively out of Matthew's arms upon the patched and faded
coat of her restored consort.

"I thought you would know the voice," said Amos, "and that's the reason
I changed it into a growl. This 'ere old Californy suit was a pooty good
disguise, too. But my confounded laugh betrayed me. I didn't think to
change that."

The third laugh had roused old Van Quintem from a nice nap, and he came
out on the piazza.

"Hallo, Mr. Carpenter! what are you doing there?" said he,
good-naturedly.

A few words from the supposed carpenter defined his position, and threw
old Van Quintem into the appropriate state of amazement. Looking at the
shaggy face by a variety of lights, he soon came to recognize it as that
of his niece's husband, whom he had seen a few times on his yearly
visits to the country, before his farming brother, Nicholas Van Quintem,
father of Mrs. Frump, had died.

"From the way Gusty hangs to you, I judge you are no ghost," said old
Van Quintem, when he had partly recovered his senses.

"No more than I am a carpenter," was the dry response.

"But how does it happen that you are no ghost?" asked old Van Quintem,
with fearful interest.

This was what everybody wanted to know; and so Mr. Frump, supporting his
wife by the waist, while she, apparently half stupefied, reposed her
head on his shoulder, explained the mystery of his appearance. He had
been severely injured in a drunken quarrel about a claim--he would not
deny _that_; and, taking off his broad-brimmed hat, he showed the two
deep scars extending from his eyebrows to the roots of his hair. He was
left on the ground for dead, and his assailants ran away. The
enterprising correspondent of three San Francisco papers saw him when he
was first found, and, learning that he would undoubtedly die, the
enterprising correspondent regarded him as already sufficiently dead for
newspaper purposes, and sent three thrilling accounts of his butchery,
written up with ingenious va