ove all was heard the startling clangor of a bell.

"Halloo! who's this?" cried a voice that evidently issued from a set
of powerful human lungs. The miser felt himself roughly shaken by the
shoulder, and awoke.

"What's the noise?--fire?" he asked; for the bell he had heard in his
dream now jarred upon his waking senses.

"Fire! no!" said the man who had awakened him--the butcher of the
village. "It's the boys ringing in the new year. By the way, I wish
you a happy new year, Mr. Wurm."

"A happy new year, Mr. Wurm," said the schoolmaster for he, too, was
present.

"A happy new year," said Farmer Harrowby.

"And a happy new year" chorused a dozen other voices. It was great fun
wishing a miser a happy new year.

"Thank you, neighbors; I wish you a thousand," replied Israel,
cheerfully.

"How came you asleep there?" asked Farmer Harrowby. "Why, you might
have perished in the drift."

"I was overcome by drowsiness," answered Israel. "I was very cold; I'd
been to make a call on Widow Redman, and the poor soul was out of
wood. By the way, farmer, the first thing after sunrise, I want you to
be sure to gear up your ox team, and take a cord of your best hickory
and pitch pine to the widow."

"And who'll pay me?" asked the farmer, doubtfully.

"I will, to be sure," answered Israel. "Have not I got money enough?
Here--hold your hand;" and he put a handful of silver in the farmer's
honest palm. "And you, Mr. Wilkins," he added, addressing the butcher,
"take her the best turkey you've got, and half a pig, with my
compliments, and a happy new year to her."

"And how about that execution?" asked the constable, who was round
with the rest, 'seeing the old year out and the new year in.'

"Confound the execution! Don't let me hear another word about it,"
said Israel, magnanimously. "And now, neighbors," he added, "I owe you
something for your good wishes; come along with me to the Golden Lion,
and I'll give you the best supper the tavern affords. Hurrah! New year
don't come but once in a twelvemonth."

We will be bound that a merrier party never left a churchyard, even
after a funeral, nor a merrier set ever sat down to a festal board,
than that which gathered to greet the hospitality of Israel Wurm. In
the course of the evening, an old Scotch gardener gave it as his
opinion that the "miser was _fey_." (When a man suddenly changes his
character, as when a spendthrift becomes saving, or a niggard
generous, the Scotch