"I hope, sir, that you will find your visit to Nyack pleasant," she replied, tossing her long, golden curls bewitchingly over her fair, full shoulders with her right hand, then motioning Mr. Gusher to be seated "Nyack is a very dull place, though. I am sure you will not find much in it to interest you. My mother tells me you are to make but a very short stay. I don't wonder you are anxious to get back, sir"

Mrs. Chapman was at this time in a state of great alarm lest Mattie should say something not strictly within the rules of propriety. She shook her head and cast a significant glance at Mattie, then raised the fore-finger of her right hand to her lips, admonishingly.

"My daughter has not heard of the great enterprise yourself and my dear husband are engaged in"

"Why, yes, mother, I have," interrupted Mattie; "did'nt Mr. Toodleburg and father go up the river to buy up all the vegetables for the New York market?"

"Oh, horrors! horrors! Why, my daughter, what put such a strange thought in your head? Think of it. Your intellectual father going into the vegetable business - and with a common old Dutchman! Oh, horrors, my daughter! What could have put such a thought in your head?" The fat, fussy woman affected to be overcome, and raised her hands in the very agony of distress.

"My daughter, Mr. Gusher, has a way of talking so at times. A little satirical, you know - inherits it from her father."

"My mother has spoken of you frequently, Mr. Gusher. I almost felt acquainted with you before you arrived. You do business in the city, she says. The weather is so very bad, I am sure you will not enjoy such a dull place as this," said Mattie, turning to Mr. Gusher and resuming the conversation, cold and emotionless.

"No, no, miss," rejoined Mr. Gusher, smiling; "I am zure I shall be so happy wiz you. Wiz you to zay so many good zings to me, my heart shall be in ze paradise." Here Mr. Gusher made a bow, and pressed his hand to his heart. "Wiz you for ze bird of zat paradise, oh, I shall be so happy."

"Then you and father are going into business, Mr. Gusher? I do hope you will be successful. If you can only get father to stick to business," resumed Mattie. "He is smart at inventing new religions, and other things. Mother, (here she turned to her mother, who was in a state of great alarm,) how many new religions has father invented? I know how many churches he has built"

"My daughter, my daughter!" exclaimed the impatient and perplexed woman. "Such things as churches don't interest Mr. Gusher. Mr. Gusher moves in distinguished society, and goes to a fashionable church."

"Oh, yes, madam, I go to ze very fazionable church. I go to zee ze ladies, and to enjoy ze sentiment of ze music. Zen I shall enjoy myself wiz your daughter more as well in your house. I shall do zat. Your daughter, she shall zing to me, and she shall play to me, and she shall read to me some poetry. I am so much love ze poetry."