I wri-i-te in the-e Chai-ai-ai-air-"
—"Dear me, OCTAVE," interrupted the old lady, "can't you read even a letter without Intoning—and to the tone of 'Old Hundredth,' too?"
"I'm afraid not, dear OLDY," responded the Gospeler. "I'm so much in the habit of it. You're not so ritualistic yourself, and may be able to do better."
"Give it back to me, my sing-sing-sonny," said the old lady; who at once read as follows: "DEAR MADAM, I write from the chair which I have now occupied for six hours, in the house of a man whom I never saw before in my life, but who comes next in the Directory to the obstinate but finally conquered being under whose roof I resolutely passed the greater part of yesterday. He sits near me in another chair, so much weakened that he can just reply to me in whispers, and I believe that a few hours more of my talk will leave him no choice between dying of exhaustion at my feet and taking a Policy in the Boreal Life Insurance Company, of which I am Agent. I have spoken to my wards, MONTGOMERY and MAGNOLIA PENDRAGON, concerning MAGNOLIA'S being placed at school in the Macassar, and MONTGOMERY'S acceptance of your son, OCTAVIUS, as his tutor, and shall take them with me to Bumsteadville to-morrow, for such disposition. Hoping, Madam, that neither you nor your son will much longer fly into the face of Providence by declining to insure your lives, through me, in the Boreal, I have the honor to be Yours, for two Premiums, MELANCTHON SCHENCK."
"Well, OLDY," said OCTAVIUS, with dismal countenance, "do you think we'll have to do it?"
"Do what?" asked the old lady.
"Let him Insure us."
"I'm afraid it will come to that yet, OCTAVE. I've known persons to die under him."
"Well, well, Heaven's will be done," muttered the patient Gospeler. "And now, mother, we must do something to make the first coming of these young strangers seem cheerful to them. We must give a little dinner-party here, and invite Miss CAROWTHERS, and BUMSTEAD and his 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.