100 ADVENT URP:S IN THP: WILDERNESS. 



Uncle Ike was in his stockings. John had on 

 tightly-laced moccasins. Southwick sported a pair 

 of bright scarlet slippers. Hubbard shook the floor 

 with boots that had seen service on the " carry." 

 All were mingled together; while above the din 

 made by heavy boots smiting the resounding floor, 

 the merry laugh of girls, and peals of irrepressible 

 mirth, the voice of Everitt, who sat perched upon 

 the back of a chair, sawing away with all his 

 might, rang out the necessary orders. It has been 

 reported that at this juncture the Parson himself 

 was swept by the centripetal attraction into the 

 revolving mass, and that the way he " cut it down " 

 revealed a wonderful aptness for the " double-shuf- 

 fle," and that a large amount of the old Adam 

 remained yet to be purged out of his natural con- 

 stitution. The probabilities are that this report is 

 entirely unfounded, or at least grossly exaggerated. 

 At last, well along in the fashionable hours, the 

 revelry ceased, the company separated, and silence 

 settled down over the household. With the sounds 

 the scene itself would have passed away and been 

 forgotten save by the actors, had not the pen of 

 the Parson rescued it from threatened oblivion, 

 and in these pages preser\^ed it for transmission 

 to posterity. He thus avenges himself on those 

 who interrupted him in the exercise of his right, 

 by recounting the folly his speech would undoubt- 

 edly have prevented, had he been permitted to 

 proceed. 



