nephew, and the Flowerpot. Don't you think the codfish will go round?"

"Yes, dear: that is, if you and I take the spine," replied the old lady.

So the party of reception was arranged, and the invitations hurried out.

At about half an hour before dinner there was a sound in the air of
Bumsteadville as of a powerful stump-speaker addressing a mass-meeting
in the distance; rapidly intensifying to stentorian phrases, such
as--"provide for your miserable surviving offspring"--"lower rates than
any other company"--"full amount cheerfully paid upon hearing of your
death"--until a hack appeared coming down the crossroad descending into
Gospeler's Gulch, and stopped at the Gospeler's door. As the faint
driver, trembling with nervous debility from great excess of deathly
admonition addressed to him, through the front window of his hack, all
the way from the ferry, checked his horses in one feeble gasp of
remaining strength, the Reverend OCTAVIUS stepped forth from the doorway
to greet Mr. SCHENCK and the dark-complexioned, sharp-eyed young brother
and sister who came with him.

"Now remember, fellow," said Mr. SCHENCK to the driver, after he had
come out of the vehicle, shaking his cane menacingly at him as he spoke,
"I've warned you, in time, to prepare for death, and given you a
Schedule of our rates to read to your family. If you should die of
apoplexy in a week, as you probably will, your wife must pick rags, and
your children play a harp and fiddle. Dream of it, think of it,
dissolute man, and take a Policy in the Boreal."

As the worn-out hackman, too despondent at thought of his impending
decease and family-bankruptcy to make any other answer than a groan,