all that man's trials, he would get to be a hypocrite and believe in total annihilation." 

 Dilly made no reply to this speech. Probably the latter part was beyond her simple comprehension. 

 Mr. Pimble himself, the man of trials, as his housekeeper affirmed, now opened the sitting-room door and looked forth. He was habited in a long, faded, palm-figured bed-gown, all muffled up round his chin, and sheep-skin slippers without heels. He had a lank, pale, discouraged visage, and thin, light hair, streaked with gray, in a very untidy state straggling about his face. He pulled his wrapper up yet closer about his head, when he discovered the washerwoman, and shambled across the clean-swept floor, his heelless slippers going clip-clap after him, as he stalked along. What a gaunt, unhealthy-looking personage was the rich Peter Paul Pimble, Esq., of Mudget Square! 

 "Well, you are come, then, are you?" said he, glancing toward the kitchen clock, which was on the stroke of eight; "pretty time to commence a day's work." 

 "And she has had no breakfast; and the water is not in the kettles," put in dame Peggy. "I could have had that all hot for her, if you had just told me she was comin' to wash. But some folks always like to be so sly and underhanded." 

 "Stop your clack!" said the master, turning toward her with an angry glance, "and get a bite of something to eat while she is putting her water on and building a fire. I shall be at home through the day to superintend matters and see that all is done to my wishes." 

 Thus saying, he scuffled back to his warm fire in the parlor; for, though it was a bright morning in the early part of May, and odorous flowers opening their petals to the genial sunbeams, and groups of singing birds merry on all the foliage-covered trees, still Esq. Pimble was cold—always cold, summer and winter. No genial influence could warm his sluggish blood, or impart a glow to his dry, parchment-colored face. 

 There he sat; his feet poised on the fender, and a newspaper in his skinny clutch, from which he seemed to read. Now and then he yawned, stretched himself, approached the window, gazed forth for a moment with some anxiety depicted on his expressionless face, and then sunk down in his cushioned chair again. All the while the washing was going on briskly in the kitchen. Peggy Nonce had outlived her morning's asperity, and concluded to bake a batch of dried apple pies, as there must be a fire kept in the 

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