"When will they begin?" demanded my daughter Julia.

"To-morrow?" asked Anna.

"Patience, patience, my dears," said I, "such a big chimney is
not to be abolished in a minute."

Next morning it began again.

"You remember the chimney," said my wife. "Wife," said I, "it is
never out of my house and never out of my mind."

"But when is Mr. Scribe to begin to pull it down?" asked Anna.

"Not to-day, Anna," said I.

"WHEN, then?" demanded Julia, in alarm.

Now, if this chimney of mine was, for size, a sort of belfry, for
ding-donging at me about it, my wife and daughters were a sort of
bells, always chiming together, or taking up each other's
melodies at every pause, my wife the key-clapper of all. A very
sweet ringing, and pealing, and chiming, I confess; but then, the
most silvery of bells may, sometimes, dismally toll, as well as
merrily play. And as touching the subject in question, it became
so now. Perceiving a strange relapse of opposition in me, wife
and daughters began a soft and dirge-like, melancholy tolling
over it.

At length my wife, getting much excited, declared to me, with