94 RISEN- B Y PERSE VERaNCE. 



manner, and, we daresay, not too much en beau, for all is 

 so simply right and so perfectly natural. But this, as has 

 been remarked, is the sanctified Ufe of the fireside — ' the 

 porcupine with his quills sheathed.' He says : — 



' I began my young marriage days in and near Philadel- 

 phia. At one of those times to which I have just alluded, 

 in the middle of the burning hot month of July, I was 

 greatly afraid of fatal consequences to my wife for want of 

 sleep, she not having, after the great danger was over, had 

 any sleep for more than forty-eight hours. All great cities 

 in hot countries are, I believe, full of dogs ; and they in the 

 very hot weather keep up during the night a horrible 

 barking and fighting and howling. Upon the particular 

 occasion to which I am adverting, they made a noise so 

 terrible and so unremitted, that it was next to impossible 

 that even a person in full health and free from pain should 

 obtain a minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, 

 sitting by the bed. " I do think," said she, " that I could 

 go to sleep now, if it were not for the dogs." Down-stairs 

 I went, and out I sallied in my shirt and trousers, and 

 without shoes and stockings ; and going to a heap of stones 

 lying beside the road, set to work upon the dogs, going 

 backward and forward and keeping them at two or three 

 hundred yards' distance from the house. I walked thus the 

 whole night, barefooted, lest the noise of my shoes might 

 possibly reach her ears; and I remember that the bricks of 

 the causeway were, even in the night, so hot as to be dis- 

 agreeable to my feet. My exertions produced the desired 

 effect : a sleep of several hours was the consequence, and at 

 eight o'clock in the morning off went I to a day's business 

 which was to end at six in the evening. 



