All Wimbledon was aroused one cold November morning by a direful conglomeration of sounds;—strange, discordant shrieks, ominous groans, a clanking, as of iron chains and fetters, a slow, heavy, elephantine tread gradually growing on the ear, and a deep, continuous rumbling as of earthquakes in the bowels of the earth. Mrs. Salsify Mumbles, nervous and delicate as she was, clung fast to the neck of her liege lord when he attempted to throw open the sash of his window, to discover the import of this unusual disturbance of the nocturnal stillness of Wimbledon. Good Deacon Allen, who was lying on his deaf ear, became restless, and visions of the final retribution and doom of the wicked harassed his slumbers. Suddenly he awoke, and dismal groans and unearthly rumblings struck his terrified ear. "Sally! Sally!" said he, leaping from bed and giving his sleeping spouse a vigorous shake, "why sleepest thou? arise and don thy drab camlet and high-crowned cap, and prepare to meet thy Lord; for behold he cometh!" 

 "Samuel," said the good wife but half awake, "you are prating in your sleep. Return to your pillow and be quiet till day-break." 

 "You speak like a foolish virgin, Sally," returned the excited deacon. "Do you not hear the roaring of the resurrection thunder and the wailings of the wicked?" 

 "I do hear something," said Mrs. Allen, now poking her night-capped head from beneath the blankets, and listening a moment attentively. "'Tis a sound of heavy carts drawn by oxen over frozen ground. Ay, I guess it is the new family, that bought out neighbor Williams, moving their goods. Just look out the window,—our yards join,—and see if there is not a stir there." The deacon obeyed. 

 "O, yes," said he, "I can distinguish several loaded teams and dusky figures moving to and fro." 

 "I thought 'twas the new-comers," returned the wife, who possessed more ready wit and shrewdness than her amiable consort, and, withal, could hear vastly better. "You had better come to bed again, Samuel;—'tis an hour to daylight." 

 "I cannot get to sleep again, I have been so disturbed," said the husband, fidgetting round in the dark room to find his clothes. 

 "O, pshaw!—put your deaf ear up and you'll soon fall off," answered the wife, drawing the covering over her head. Deacon Allen, who had a very high opinion of his wife's good sense, concluded to follow her advice, and the happy couple were soon enjoying as pleasant a morning snooze, as though 

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