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So this time the party had all got into the kitchen, where the cheerful fire in the stove seemed greatly to please the new comer, and led him to edge his way to- wards it.

"I suppose," said the pastor, "you wouldn't have come out to-night, if you had not been sent out on business?"

"No, sir, I just shouldn't. You see, the Lord sends the storms; the Lord sends fair weather, too; and it's the Lord who sends death."

"Is any one dead in the town?"

"Not as I knows of, exactly; the town is the rich people, I s'pose, and all the well off sort o' folks, ain't they?"

"Why, no; the town means the whole people, old and young, high and low, rich and poor."

"Well, I declar', if that isn't a great piece of news to me. Down in our place, the Pooe don't seem to be reckoned much on, and I'd kinder tho't they only belonged to the town, and warn't the town itself, or any part of it."

"The poor of the town are just as much a part of the town as the rich, my lad, only -- "

"' Only' they ain't as much tho't on, or needed, ay?"

"Ah! well -- they are an unfortunate and suffering class of persons. But the town makes some, if not am- ple provision for their comfort."

"Yes, I s'pose so; but I reckun it's a sort of relief when any of the old criturs like aunt Dorothy goes off the handle -- what?"

"Why, you see, it costs Captain Bunce a deal of money to feed um, and it's a gain when they dies. They do no sort of good, take it in the winter, and they need a plaguy site of soup and cider, and tea fixings, besides some more bed clothes, and other clothes, and fires. Consequence is, that the cost is mighty hard. Captain says, on the town, and on himself."

"Why, the town don't have any thing to do with those matters. He, th3 Captain, bears all those charges for so much a year, and it is his duty to keep them well, and see that they are comfortable every way."

"Is it, indeed! Well, I should like it if he only know'd this, for the Captain says his duty is to see that we don't starve nor freeze."

"Abominable!" said Mrs. Rodman. ""

"Cruel and horrible monster!" said Ann.

"And then you belong to the poor-house, do you?" kindly questioned Mrs. Rodman.

"Yes, I live there. I've been there a good while -- it's sort of home to me."

"Then you like to live there, I suppose, better than you would to live any where else?"

"I s'pose so -- don't know about other folks much -- I likes Mr. Haddock."

"Is your mother, or your father alive, my boy?" she asked.

"No; they died great while ago -- most afore I can remember. The Cap'n and Mrs. Bunce are my dad and ma'am, so they say."

"They probably know and can tell us all about the boy's parents," said Mr. Rodman to his wife, "they know if they are alive."

"They don't nuther!" said the boy, with something of a fierce expression.

"How do you know, my lad?" soothingly asked the lady.

The boy's angry expression relaxed as he listened to her kind tones, and turned his eyes full on her amiable and smiling countenance -- "Oh, ma'am," said he, "they sware at me, they flog me, they shut me up all day, they say if my father or mother was alive they'd send me home -- they'd get me flogged from morning till night. Little do they know or care for me, but to call me names. What do they know about my father or mother, except that they's dead?"

"Well, it may be as you say, poor boy."

"When the people down there are sick, do they have good doctoring?" inquired the minister.

"We sometimes have doctoring, and sometimes not. I've no need of doctor's stuff. I takes care of myself. But old aunt Dorothy wanted doctoring, so all the poor folks say."

"Ah! Then if I now understand you, aunt Dorothy is dead?"

"Yes, sir, she's gone."

"When did this happen?"

"She took to ailing this mornin', and afore night, when the Cap'n said he guess'd the doctor'd happen round, she got crazy, and when it was good candle lighting, she ris up in the bed, shook her old crazy head, laughed out kinder wild, sung one of her old tunes, and fell back as dead as a door nail."

"Oh, dear!" sighed out the smitten wife of the pastor,

"A shocking death, I declare," said Ann.

"And now that the good old lady has breathed her last," said the minister, "what is your errand to me?"

"Well, the Cap'n says she must be buried as soon as possible, for craziness is sort of catching, and scary any way, so he wants you should come down to-morrow at one o'clock to make the prayers and see to the fun'ral."

"I will endeavor to be there," was the low and solemn reply.

"But, husband, is it not strange to hurry her so soon to her grave?"

"Yes, it seems unnecessary. Yet, there the poor creatures are huddled together, and easily frightened, and rendered troublesome, and there are few to care for them. If one of them is really gone out of the world, the silent grave may as well receive the remains. What lessons will the living learn by keeping the unclaimed body from it?"

"Cruel, inhuman, desperate fate!" said she.