' stone wall and what with
arguin' with Seth, I come home quite beat out,--Miss Twitchel will
remember."

"That he was!" said his helpmeet. "I 'member, when he came home, says
I, 'Father, you seem clean used up'; and I stirred 'round lively like,
to get him his tea. But he jest went into the bedroom and laid down
afore supper; and I says to Cerinthy Ann, 'That's a thing I ha'n't seen
your father do since he was took with the typhus.' And Cerinthy Ann,
she said she knew 'twa'n't anything but them old doctrines,--that it
was always so when Uncle Seth come down. And after tea Father was
kinder chirked up a little, and he and Seth set by the fire, and was
a-beginnin' it ag'in, and I jest spoke out and said,--'Now, Seth, these
'ere things doesn't hurt you; but the Deacon is weakly, and if he gets
his mind riled after supper, he don't sleep none all night. So,' says
I, 'you'd better jest let matters stop where they be; 'cause,' says I,
''twon't make no difference, for to-night, which on ye's got the right
on't;--reckon the Lord 'll go on his own way without you; and we shall
find out, by'm-by, what that is.'"

"Mr. Scudder used to think a great deal on these points," said Mrs.
Katy, "and the last time he was home he wrote out his views. I haven't
ever shown them to you, Doctor; but I should be pleased to know what
you think of them."

"Mr. Scudder was a good man, with a clear head," said the Doctor; "and
I should be much pleased to see anything that he wrote."

A flush of gratified feeling passed over Mrs. Katy's face;--for one
flower laid on the shrine which we keep in our hearts for the dead is
worth more than any gift to our living selves.

We will not now pursue our party further, lest you, Reader, get more
theological tea than you can drink. We will not recount the numerous
nice points raised by Mr. Simeon Brown and adjusted by the Doctor,--and
how Simeon invariably declared, that that was the way in which he
disposed of them himself, and how he had thought it out ten years ago.

We will not relate, either, too minutely, how Mary changed color and
grew pale and red in quick succession, when Mr. Simeon Brown
incidentally remarked, that the "Monsoon" was going to set sail that
very afternoon, for her three-years' voyage. Nobody noticed it in the
busy amenities,--the sudden welling and ebbing of that one poor little
heart-fountain.

So we go,--so little knowing what we touch and what touches us as we
talk! We drop