Oh what a ghost of dead and buried wealth had Peter Goldthwaite raised to scare himself out of his scanty wits withal!  Here was the semblance of an incalculable sum, enough to purchase the whole town and build every street anew, but which, vast as it was, no sane man would have given a solid sixpence for.  What, then, in sober earnest, were the delusive treasures of the chest?  Why, here were old provincial bills of credit and treasury notes and bills of land-banks, and all other bubbles of the sort, from the first issue—­above a century and a half ago—­down nearly to the Revolution.  Bills of a thousand pounds were intermixed with parchment pennies, and worth no more than they.

“And this, then, is old Peter Goldthwaite’s treasure!” said John Brown.  “Your namesake, Peter, was something like yourself; and when the provincial currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five per cent, he bought it up in expectation of a rise.  I have heard my grandfather say that old Peter gave his father a mortgage of this very house and land to raise cash for his silly project.  But the currency kept sinking till nobody would take it as a gift, and there was old Peter Goldthwaite, like Peter the second, with thousands in his strong-box and hardly a coat to his back.  He went mad upon the strength of it.  But never mind, Peter; it is just the sort of capital for building castles in the air.”

“The house will be down about our ears,” cried Tabitha as the wind shook it with increasing violence.

“Let it fall,” said Peter, folding his arms, as he seated himself upon the chest.

“No, no, my old friend Peter!” said John Brown.  “I have house-room for you and Tabby, and a safe vault for the chest of treasure.  To-morrow we will try to come to an agreement about the sale of this old house; real estate is well up, and I could afford you a pretty handsome price.”

“And I,” observed Peter Goldthwaite, with reviving spirits, “have a plan for laying out the cash to great advantage.”

“Why, as to that,” muttered John Brown to himself, “we must apply to the next court for a guardian to take care of the solid cash; and if Peter insists upon speculating, he may do it to his heart’s content with old Peter Goldthwaite’s treasure.”

CHIPPINGS WITH A CHISEL.

Passing a summer several years since at Edgartown, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, I became acquainted with a certain carver of tombstones who had travelled and voyaged thither from the interior of Massachusetts in search of professional employment.  The speculation had turned out so successful that my friend expected to transmute slate and marble into silver and gold to the amount of at least a thousand dollars during the few months of his sojourn at Nantucket and the Vineyard.  The secluded life and the simple and primitive spirit which still characterizes the inhabitants of those islands, especially of Martha’s