my spouse warned me of the necessity of repelling her embraces. Mrs. Sykes was now desirous of returning immediately home, to restore as it were to life her bereaved consort, who was no doubt mourning at his desolation, and refusing to be comforted. But here I felt it my duty to interpose. 'My dear Mrs. Sykes,' said I, 'your return at this moment would overwhelm him. The sudden change from the lowest depths of woe to a state of ecstacy, would consign him to the tenement you have just quitted. No! this extraordinary Providence must be gradually unfolded.' She yielded at last to my sage councils and consented to wait till the violence of his grief had somewhat abated, and his mind had become sufficiently tranquil to hear that tale which I was cautiously to relate. On the following day however, her anxiety to return had risen to a high pitch, and truly by evening it was beyond my control. She was firm in the belief that I could make the disclosure without essential injury to the Deacon; 'besides,' as she remarked, 'there was no knowing how much waste there had been in the kitchen.' It was settled at last that I should immediately walk over to the Deacon's, and by a judicious train of reflection, for which I was admirably fitted, prepare the way for this joyous meeting. When I arrived at the house of mourning, though perhaps the last person in the world entitled to the name of evesdropper, yet as my eye was somewhat askance as I passed the window, I observed a spectacle that for a time arrested my footsteps. There sat the Deacon, recounting probably the virtues of the deceased partner, and there, not far apart, sat the widow Dobble sympathizing in his sorrows. It struck me that Deacon Sykes was not ungrateful for her consolatory efforts; for he took her hand with a gentle pressure and held it to his bosom. Perhaps it was the unusual mode of dress now exhibited by the widow Dobble, that led him to this act; for she was decked out in Mrs. Sykes's best frilled cap, and such is the waywardness of fancy, he might for the moment have imagined that his help-mate was beside him. Be that as it may, while I was thus complacently regarding this interchange of friendly feelings, the cry of '_you vile hussy_' suddenly rang in my very ear, and the next instant, the door having been burst open, who should stand before the astonished couple but the veritable Mrs. Sykes. The Deacon leaped as if touched in the _pericardium_, and essayed to gain the door; but in his transit his knees denied their office, and he sank gibbering as his hand was upon the latch. As to the terrified widow Dobble, I might say with Virgilius, _steteruntque comae_, her _combs_ stood up; for the frilled cap was displaced with no little violence, and with an agonizing shriek she fell, apparently _in articulo mortis_, on the body of the Deacon. What a lamentable scene! and all in consequence of the rashness and imprudence of Mrs. Sykes. No sooner had I left my own domicil than Mrs.