presently looked up and smiled—"Old Ethan, I call to mind now," he renewed, "had a quality which our poor Barbary inherited, and for which," he added, looking toward his son William, "and for which I greatly honor his memory. He counted the money of this world but as dross. From his manhood to the very moment of his entering on the ministry, he never would touch silver nor gold, partly, I think, because it was the true Scripture course, and partly because a dreadful murder had once happened in the Barbary family, growing out of a quarrel for the possession of a paltry sum of money."

The bread she was raising to her lips fell from the widow's hand, for she could not help but think of the history of her absent son; and the voice of Miriam, who did not present herself at the table, was heard from a distant chamber, not distinctly, but in that tone of chanting lament which had become habitual to her whether in house, garden, or field. It was an inexpressibly mournful cadence, and for the time stilled all other sounds. They were only drawn away from it by descrying Mopsey, the black servant, at a turn of the road, hurrying with great animation towards the homestead, but with a singularity in her progress which could not fail to be observed. She rushed along at great speed, for several paces, and suddenly came to a halt, during which her head disappeared, and then renewed her pace, repeating the peculiar manoeuvre once at least in every ten yards. In a word, she was shuffling on in her loose shoes, (which were on or off, one or the other of them every other minute,) at as rapid a rate as that peculiar species of locomotion allowed. Bursting with impatience and the importance of her communication, her cap flaunting from her head, she stood in the doorway and announced, "We've beat Brundage—we've beat Brundage!"

"What's this, Mopsey?" old Sylvester inquired.

"I've tried it and I've spanned it. I can't span ours!"

On further questioning it appeared that Mopsey had been on a pilgrimage to the next neighbor's, the Brundages, to inspect their thanksgiving pumpkin, and institute a comparison with the Peabody growth of that kind, with a highly satisfactory and complacent result as regarded the home production. Nobody was otherwise than pleased at Mopsey's innocent rejoicing, and when she had been duly complimented on her success, she went away with a broad black guffaw to set a trap in the garden for the brown mouse, the sole surviving enemy of the great Peabody thanksgiving pumpkin which must be plucked next day for use.

With the dispatch of the evening meal, old Sylvester withdrew to the other room, with a little hand lamp, to read a chapter by himself. The others remaining seated about the apartment; the Captain and Oliver presently fell into a violent discussion on the true sources of national wealth, the Captain giving it as his opinion that it solely depended on having a great number of ships at sea, as carriers between different countries. Oliver was equally clear and resolute that the real wealth of a nation lay in its wheat crops. When wheat was at ten shillings the bushel, all went well; let it fall a quarter, and you had general bankruptcy staring you in the face. Mr. William Peabody was'nt at the pains to deliver his opinion, but he was satisfied, in his secret soul, that it lay in the increase of new houses, or the proper supply of calicoes—he had'nt made up his mind which. Presently Oliver was troubled again in reference to the supply of gold in the world—whether there was enough to do business with; he also had some things to say (which he had out of a great speech in Congress) about bullion and rates of exchange, but nobody understood him.

"By the way," he added, "Mrs. Carrack's son Tiffany is gone to the Gold Region. From what he writes to me I think he'll cut a very great figure in that country."

"An exceedingly fine, talented young man," said the merchant, who had, then, sundry sums on loan from his mother.

"In any point of view, in which you regard it," continued Oliver, "the gold country is an important acquisition."

"You hav'nt the letter Tiffany wrote, with you?" interrupted the
Captain.

"I think I have," was the answer. "I brought it, supposing you might like to look at it. Shall I read it?"

There was no objection—the letter was read—in which Mr. Tiffany Carrack professed his weariness of civilized life—spoke keenly of misspent hours—a determination to rally and do something important, intimating that that was a great country for enterprising young men, and, in a familiar phrase, closed with a settled resolution to do or die.

"I have a letter to the same effect," said the Captain.

"And so have I," said William Peabody, "word for word."

"He means to do something very grand," said the Captain. Something very grand—the women all agreed—for Mr. Tiffany Carrack was a nice young man, and had a prospect of inheriting a hundred thousand dollars, to say nothing of the large sums he was to bring from the Gold Regions. It was evident to all that he was going into the business with a rush. They, of course, would'nt see Mr. Tiffany Carrack at this Thanksgiving gathering—he had better business on hand—Mr. Tiffany Carrack was clearly the promising young man of the family, and was carrying the fortunes of the Peabodys into the remotest quarters of the land.

"In a word," said Mr. Oliver Peabody, developing the Declaration of Independence on his pocket-handkerchief. "He is going to do wonders in every point of view. He'll carry the principles of Free Government everywhere!"

The consideration of the extraordinary talents and enterprise of the son imparted a new interest to the question of the coming of Mrs. Carrack; which was rediscussed in all its bearings; and it was almost unanimously concluded—that, one day now only intervening to Thanksgiving—it was too late to look for her. There had been a general disposition, secretly opposed only by Mrs. Jane Peabody, to yield to that fashionable person the best bed-chamber, which was always accounted a great prize and distinguished honor among the family. But now there was scarcely any need of reserving it longer—and who was to have it? Alas! that is a question often raised in rural households, often shakes them to the very base, and spreads through whole families a bitterness and strength and length of strife, which frequently ends only with life itself.

To bring the matter to an issue, various whispered conversations were held in the small room, lying next to the sitting-room, at first between Mrs. Margaret Peabody and Mopsey, to which one by one were summoned, Mrs. Jane Peabody, the Captain's wife, and Mrs. Hannah Peabody. The more it was discussed the farther off seemed any reasonable conclusion. When one arrangement was proposed, various faces of the group grew dark and sour; when another, other faces blackened and elongated; tongues, too, wagged faster every minute, and at length grew to such a hubbub as to call old Sylvester away from his Bible and bring him to the door to learn what turmoil it was that at this quiet hour disturbed the peace of the Peabodys. He was not long in discovering the ground of battle, and even as in old pictures Adam is shown walking calmly in Eden among the raging beasts of all degrees and kinds, the old patriarch came forward among the women of the Peabody family—"My children," he said, "should dwell in peace for the short stay allotted them on earth. Why make a difference about so small a matter as a lodging-place—they are all good and healthful rooms. I have seen the day when camping on the wet grounds and morasses I would have held any one of them to be a palace-chamber. The back chamber, my child," he continued, addressing the Captain's wife, "looks out on the orchard,