“No, a banker. What is his name? Moon—Moon——? something about the moon.”
“Obadiah Moonshine, I daresay,” said George.
“Now, don’t, George, drive the name out of my head,” said Letty. “Oh! there it is—Paul Moon James. Millicent repeated to me some verses called ‘The Beacon.’ I did not think them half so good as her own. But the Friends think much of them.”
“They are a very extraordinary people,” said George. “I found those two queer drab servants, Sylvanus Crook and William Theobald, exactly alike, only one in little and the other in large. They were sitting, and, of all things, discussing Swedenborgianism. I learnt that this Theobald, besides being a Quaker, is a Swedenborgian preacher, but he takes his Quaker notions with him into the pulpit. Instead of taking his text, Thorsby tells us, he says, ‘Here goes for the starting-place.’
“There was a young, rather conceited fellow, not eighteen, I should say, trying to make a little fun out of this old man.
“‘Now, William,’ he said, ‘does Swedenborg tell you what the soul is?’
“‘Yes,’ said the old man; ‘it is the real man. This body is but its covering, just as my coat is the covering of the body.’
“‘Do you expect then to rise, William, just as you are—asthma, and all?’ The poor man is often afflicted with asthma.
“‘No,’ said he, ‘there will be delightful breathing on the heavenly plains.’
“‘But I can’t tell how all these things are to be,’ said the young, conceited fellow.