they would die from exposure." "Expediency!" said one of them; "do justice, if the heavens fall." "Fye at _justitia_!" said one, who pretended to take my part. "_Ruat coelum_, Let them rush to heaven," replied the other. "Parse _coelum_, please, sir," said my boy in the Academy. "Yes, past the ceiling," said the lawyer, pretending to misunderstand him; "that's right, my son;"--and more wretched punning of the same sort. Hence Mrs. North's pretended supplication about the window-sashes. She has been in excellent spirits ever since I stopped the papers. She says that she wonders at herself so calm and happy. I heard her yesterday calling at the stairs to a little lisping English waiting-maid, who cannot pronounce _s_: "Judith," said she, "did you not hear the parlor-bell?" Judith walked up, and said, "Mitthith North, lately you've rung tho eathy, that motht of the time I thought it mutht be a acthident, and didn't come up at futht. I thpect the wireth ith got ruthty." Mrs. North said nothing, but afterward, in relating the affair to me, she said she truly believed that it was owing to my stopping the papers. For she could remember how often she went to the bell-rope saying to herself as she pulled it, "sum of all villanies!" then "enormous wrong," with another pull, and then "stupendous injustice," with another. Several times she says Judith has rushed up to the parlor with "Ma'am, whath the matter! the bell rung three timth right off." She thinks that her nervous system will last longer without the papers than with them. As she told me this, she was shutting down the lid of the piano for the night. As it fell into its place, the strings set up a beautiful murmur. "Oh, hear that!" said she; "how solemn it is!" "I suppose," said I, "you would not have heard it, if those papers had been in the house." I shall not tell you, a bachelor, what she said and did. I trust that her views on the great subject of freedom will get adjusted by and by; and I am debating with myself what papers to take, having been obliged, for my own edification, to become a subscriber to the reading-room. There, however, I meet with a good many pro-slavery prints, and I am tempted to look into them; after which I frequently feel as though I should pull a bell-rope three times. A.F.N. CHAPTER III. MORBID NORTHERN CONSCIENCE. "Heaven pities ignorance: She's still the first that has her pardon sign'd; All sins else see their faults; she's, only, blind." MIDDLETON: _No Help like a Woman's._ [Accompanying note, from A. BETTERDAY CUMMING to A. FREEMAN NORTH. MY DEAR MR. NORTH,--