connection with it, he could make money enough to live like a lord in
New York. And that was exactly what Mrs. Chapman wanted. The good woman,
however, had been so much engaged of late getting the new church on its
legs, and negotiating for the services of the Reverend Warren Holbrook,
of Dogtown, Massachusetts, who was to spread the doctrines of
transcendentalism, and a variety of other isms, before the people, and
turn Nyack out of doors, religiously speaking, that she felt that she
had not performed her whole duty towards Mattie.

There had been a religious tea-party at Chapman's house, where the
affair of the new church had been talked over, and the opening day
arranged. Mrs. Chapman was in her best dress, with a profusion of
ribbons streaming down her back, and a puffy cap on her head. She had
received a letter from the Reverend Warren Holbrook, accepting the offer
of three hundred dollars a year and board and washing, and saying, that
in addition to transcendentalism, he would advocate the equality of the
great human family. If these poor, benighted Dutch people who lived
about Nyack would only be regenerated and made progressive. Mrs. Chapman
found great consolation in this letter, and sat down to read it to her
dear husband, who had moved up nearer to the lamp and opened the last
great-work on the new doctrine.

When she had finished reading it she paused for a moment, and then
spoke. "Have you noticed, my dear," she enquired, and again hesitating,
"what has been going on between our Mattie--?" Again she hesitated.

Expecting what was coming, Chapman interposed by saying, "Don't be
afraid to speak, my darling; I know what you mean."

"I meant," resumed Mrs. Chapman, blushing and looking very serious, "I