MR. AND MRS. TOMPKINS.
A SIMPLE TALE.
In a certain village-pleasant enough to behold, as you ride or walk through it, but abominably unpleasant to remain in, on account of the unconquerable propensity of its inhabitants for scandal and tittle-tattle, which prevails to a degree infectious even among decent people-in this village, about ten years ago, a man and his wife, of plain appearance, both in person and dress, came to reside, having the fear of God before their eyes ; and in that fear, I trust, they died . But they were the subjects of much speculation ; and no political question has ever, to my certain knowledge, called forth so much original argumentation among the people of that village, as did the arrival of this couple ; unpretending, unquaint, and inoffensive as they were.
They came in a stage, with but small incumbrance of luggage for persons who meant to remain in one place for any long time ; and according to an arrangement previously made, took up their quarters in the house of a respectable widow, whose modest mansion afforded to them the only room they wanted, and whose modest circumstances made their coming to board with her, in that single room, a decided convenience.
The fact being ascertained, in an hour's time, throughout the village, that the widow Wilkins had got two boarders who were to occupy her spare room, it became a subject of conversation at the post-office, the tavern, the grocery, the prayermeeting, and in every domestic circle. But nobody was able, that evening, to throw light upon the question of who the new comers were ; and conjecture was left free to range through the mazes of its own world of imagination.
Three ladies, a widow, a widow bewitched, and a middle-aged woman, namely, Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and Miss Cross, had gone immediately, on observing that the stage had dropped two passengers with the widow, to ascertain who they were, where they came from, what they had in view, and whither they were going next. All the information , however, that Mrs. Steele, Mrs. Hawkins, and Miss Cross had been enabled to obtain, (albeit they would have wormed the one secret which a man ought to keep from his wife out of him, after the Holy Inquisition had given him up in despair) was, that Mrs. Wilkins had taken a man and his wife to board at
her house ; and that their name was Tompkins. They had