nd 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 neither the resurrection nor the "new family" had disturbed their
slumbers.

Jenny Andrews and Amy Seaton, who slept in the room above, never heard a
sound, nor did Charlie in his cosey chamber beyond, and great was the
astonishment of the young people, on opening their casements, to behold
the long line of heavy-loaded teams drawn up in the yard of the splendid
mansion which stood next above Dea. Allen's, the former residence of Esq.
Williams. Teamsters in blue frocks were unfastening the smoking oxen from
the ponderous carts, and as the girls hurried below to impart the
intelligence of the arrival of the new family to Mrs. Allen, they heard
the voice of Mrs. Salsify Mumbles, and entering the sitting-room found
that lady laying aside her bonnet and shawl. Mary Madeline was standing
by the window gazing into the adjoining yard. Jenny and Amy had not seen
their former boarding mistress since they left her house at the close of
the summer term, se