"Pimble speaks, sister Justitia," said Mrs. Lawson. 

 "What do you want?" asked the lady, turning sharply round. 

 "'Tis four o'clock, ma'am," gasped he. 

 "Four o'clock! didn't I tell you I wished to be at the lecture-room at that hour?" 

 "I didn't like to interrupt you," he answered feebly. 

 "What a fool of a man!" exclaimed the enraged wife. "Bring the sleigh to the door, instanter;" and Pimble rushed out, the ladies following close on his heels, vociferating at the top of their voices, without even a parting salutation to the family they had been visiting. 

 CHAPTER VIII. 

"It is a hermit.

Well, methinks I've read

In romance tales of such strange beings oft;

But surely ne'er did think these eyes should see

The living, breathing, walking counterpart.

Canst tell me where he dwells?

Far in the woods,

In a lone hut, apart from all his kind."

 Old Play. 

Old Play

 

 The pale moonbeams peeped through the rents and crevices of Dilly Danforth's wretched abode, as the poor woman sat on the hearth with Willie's head lying in her lap, while he read by the flickering fire-light from the pages of a well-worn Bible. The little fellow had never fully recovered from that long, painful illness that had nearly cost him his life, and from which it is very possible he would never have arisen but for those little bundles of firewood that were so providentially laid on poor Dilly's threshold, by some 

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