from her other half, and which she, God bless her, is ever so ready to afford to him, Mr. Tub betook himself to his night's repose.

CHAPTER V.

In the midst of Elder Tub's ruminations Paddle reappeareth, in a fashion beseeming himself and none other-He anticipateth the remonstrance which was about to be entered at the close of the last interview, and fully, and satisfactorily, removeth the grounds thereof. Wherefore it behoveth the reader well to consider this chapter, as he may herein find his own similar objections to what hath gone before well and truly answered.

THE fourth evening from the date at which this history commences was a cold and blustering one; Mr. and Mrs. Tub sat cosily by the fire, enjoying the luxury of the warmth and cheer within so sensibly enhanced by contrast with the coldness and dreariness without. "Paddle will be likely to stay at home in hell to-night," muttered the elder, "if thar is half the degree of comfort thar that he reports."

And the elder and Dorothy instinctively drew nearer the fire, as the wind, which piped its melancholy notes about the angles, and through the broad passage of the mansion,

brought ever and anon a pattering of sleet against the windows, and caused the worthy couple to draw self-comforting comparisons between their own condition on that cold night, and the condition of the poor whose hearths were fireless, and whose scanty coverings sufficed not to exclude the unpitying blasts, which are not gifted with the moral sense to temper themselves to the naked and unsheltered. Ah me, the hearts of the rich, in general, have little advantage to boast over the unpitying blasts in that respect.

"Yes," mentally ejaculated our hero, as he sat gazing intently at the red coals in the grate, and fancifully forming them into various fantastic resemblances; "Paddle will keep housed in his warm quarters to-night, but were he to present himself I should not fail to enforce the remonstrance which Dorothy's untimely appearance prevented me from urging in our last interview. He is doubtless right, however, in regard to the fallibility of all intelligences of all worlds throughout the universe; for this is the very idea which parson Smearsoul labored to enforce in his last Sabbath morning sermon.

"In the case of the angels that kept not their first estate,' said he, 'we have an awful instance that hell is the dread receptacle of spirits from other and higher spheres in the universe, than ours.' He then insisted, by way of vindicating the divine conduct in this matter, that God is under a sort of necessity of creating intelligences morally accountable; and if morally accountable they may sin, and eternally undo themselves. To prevent such a catastrophe by force,' said he, 'would be inconsistent with the eternal principles of his nature, and incompatible with the moral freedom and dignity of his creatures.'

Yes, all that was clar enough to my mind. But as to Paddle's estimate of the proportions saved and damned from this world, I don't believe them; perhaps they hold good as to those who have left the earth in past times; but I have heard the Rev. Mr. Smearsoul make it out clearly, that, in the long run, the saved from earth shall exceed the damned, by as large a difference as thar is between the number of

ference as thar is between the number of convicts in the penitentiaries of a country and the whole residue of its community. This was clarly made out by parson Smearsoul, and tharfore"

Here the elder stared into the graterubbed his eyes stared again and again rubbed his eyes. "Can it be," thought he; "can it, possibly, be? Why no, that grate wouldn't contain the whole person of Paddle, and yet thar he seems to be, sure enough, perfect in all his form and features." And the elder looked in alarm toward Dorothy, to see if she also was not a witness to the appearance of his strange visitant. But Dorothy's soul was in the realm of Somnus, and little chance there seemed, from the deep trumpet-notes emitted from her nasal organ, that any ordinary occurrence would suffice to disenchant her from the spell of the sleeping god.

Paddle, meanwhile, sat amid the red coals with as stoical an indifference to their heat, as is evinced by an Indian warrior to the devices of torture practised upon him by his captors. His countenance wore its usually comical leer, and his deep-set optics