The Proctors, seated in their room with their pastor and Elder Judge, seemed very much pleased to see them, and, with their usual blandness of manner, spoke about their respective families while their pastor and Elder Judge looked so grave as to make the Proctors think there was really something very depressing on their minds. At last the pastor said in a most solemn manner, "Mr. and Mrs. Proctor, I and Elder Judge have called to see you this morning on a matter that is far from agreeable to us and may be to you--a matter that affects the interests of our Church, the interests of Christianity, and the interests of your family. It is indeed a most grave matter. It was thought that we had better call a Church meeting to look into it; but before doing so we decided that you should be seen about it." "Pray, Mr. Baker," said Mr. Proctor, cutting him short, "pray, what is the matter! Do let us know without any ceremony." "It is a matter which I am deeply pained to name. It concerns you and your wife. The fact is simply this. It is reported throughout the town that a certain gentleman, whose name I need not state, was passing your house the night before last, when he saw you chasing your wife round the room in a most furious manner, with a fire-shovel in your hand, meaning to inflict bodily harm upon her." The words had barely escaped the lips of the pastor ere the Proctors, both together, burst into a loud laugh, which even shocked the gravity for a moment of the pastor and Elder Judge. "But Mr. and Mrs. Proctor," said Elder Judge, "I hope you will look upon this affair in a different way to that." "We cannot," said Mr. Proctor; "the thing to which you refer is so perfectly ludicrous. Let me tell you the fact in a word. That night Mrs. Proctor came into the sitting-room from the shop terribly frightened with what she said was a mouse under her dress. In her fright she ran round the room thinking to shake the vermin from her clothes, and I took the fire-shovel and ran after her with a view to kill the mouse. So that is the sum of the matter." The pastor and Elder Judge here looked each other in the face and laughed heartily; and seemed relieved of a great burden. Instead of seeking to do his wife bodily harm, Mr. Proctor was only in pursuit of a mouse which had overreached its legitimate boundaries and found its way into a foreign territory.