he
neighborhood, but had not been a member of his congregation;) and who,
having been to the theatre on the Thursday night, was taken ill of a
bowel attack on the Friday, and was a "_lifeless corpse_ when the next
Sabbath dawned"--you might have heard a beetle sneeze within any of the
walls, all over the crowded chapel. Two-thirds of the women present,
struck with the awful judgment upon the deceased Miss Snooks, inwardly
made solemn vows never again to enter the accursed walls of a theatre or
concert-room;[11] many determined no longer to subscribe to the
circulating library, ruining their precious souls with light and amusing
reading; and almost all resolved forthwith to become active members of a
sort of religious tract society, which "dear Mr. Horror" had just
established in the neighborhood, for the purpose of giving the sick and
starving poor _spiritual_ food, in the shape of tracts, (chiefly written
by himself,) which might "wean their affections away from this vain
world," and "fix them on better things," rejoicing, in the meanwhile, in
the bitter pangs of destitution--and able to bear them! All this sort of
thing Mr. Horror possibly imagined to be calculated to advance the cause
of real religion! In short, he had created a sort of spiritual fever
about the place which was then just at its height in worthy Mrs.
Tag-rag.

"Well, Dolly, how are you to-night?" inquired Tag-rag, with unusual
briskness, on entering the room.

"Tolerable, thank you, Tag," replied Mrs. Tag-rag, mournfully, with a
sigh, closing the cheerful volume she had been perusing--it having been
recommended the preceding Sunday from the pulpit by its pious and gifted
author, to be read and prayed over every day by every member of his
congregation!

"And how are _you_, Tabby?" said Tag-rag, addressing his daughter. "Come
and kiss me, you little slut--come!"

"No, I sha'n't, pa! Do let me go on with my practising," said Miss
Tag-rag--and twang! twang! went those infernal keys.

"D' ye hear, Tab? Come and kiss me, you little minx"----

"Really, pa, how provoking--just as I am in the middle of the _Cries of
the Wounded_! I sha'n't--that's flat."

The doting parent could not, however, be denied; so he stepped to the
piano, put his arm around his dutiful daughter's neck, kissed her
fondly, and then stood for a moment behind her, admiring her brilliant
execution of The _Trumpet of Victory_. Having changed his coat, and put
on an old pair of shoe