We have doubts about the following story, which comes to us from the interior; but the author is responsible for what he says, and his name can be obtained upon application at this office.

Last winter two of my neighbors, Mr. Miller and Mr. Grant, lost their wives upon the same day; and both of the funerals took place three days afterwards, the interments being made at the cemetery about the same hour. As the two funeral parties were coming out of the burying-ground, Miller met Grant; and, clasping each other's hand, they indulged in a sympathetic squeeze, and the following conversation ensued:—

Miller. "I'm sorry for you. It's an unspeakable loss, isn't it?"

Grant. "Awful! She was the best woman that ever lived."

Miller. "She was, indeed. I never met her equal. She was a good wife to me."

Grant. "I was referring to my wife. There couldn't be two best, you know."

Miller. "Yes, I know. I know well enough that your wife couldn't hold a candle to mine."

Grant. "She couldn't, hey? Couldn't hold a candle! Why, she could dance all round Mrs. Miller every day in the week, including Sundays, and not half try! She was an unmitigated angel, take her any way you would."

Miller. "Oh! she was, was she? Well, I don't want to be personal; but if I owned a cross-eyed angel with red hair and no teeth, and as bony as an omnibus-horse, I'd kill her if she didn't die of her own accord. Dance!—how could a woman dance that had feet like candle-boxes, and lame at that?"

Grant. "Better be cross-eyed than wear the kind of a red nose that your wife flourished around this community. I bet it'll burn a hole through the coffin-lid. And you pretend you're sorry she's gone. But you can't impose on me: I know you're so glad you can hardly hold in. She was the chuckle-headedest woman that ever disgraced a graveyard: that's what she was."

Miller. "If you abuse my wife, I'll knock you down."

Grant. "I'd like to see you try it."

Then the two disconsolate widowers engaged in a hand-to-hand combat; and, after tussling a while in the snow, the mourners pulled them apart, just as Mr. Miller was about to insist upon his wife's virtues by biting off Mr. Grant's nose.

When they got home, Mr. Grant tied crape upon all his window-shutters to show how deeply he mourned; and, as Miller knew that his grief for Mrs. Miller was deeper, he not only decorated his shutters, but he fixed five yards of black bombazine on the bell-pull, and dressed his whole family in mourning. Then Grant determined that his duty to the departed was not to let himself be beaten by a man who couldn't feel any genuine sorrow: so he sewed a black flag on his lightning-rod, and festooned the front of his house with black alpaca.

Then Miller became excited; and he expressed his sense of bereavement by painting his dwelling black, and by putting up a monument to Mrs. Miller in his front-yard. Grant thereupon stained his yellow horse with lampblack, tied crape to his cow's horn, daubed his dog with ink, and began to wipe his nose on a black handkerchief. As soon as Miller saw these proceedings, he spread a layer of charcoal all over his front-yard, he assumed a black shirt, he corked the faces of his family when they went to church, and he hired a colored man to stand on his steps and cry for twelve hours every day. Just as Grant was about to see this, and go it one better, he encountered Miss Lang, a young lady from the city; and in a couple of weeks they were engaged. Then he began to take in the evidences of his grief; and this made Miller so mad, that he went around and proposed to Miss Jones, an old maid who never had an offer before. She accepted him on the spot; and they were married the day before Grant's wedding, which so disgusted him that he would have given up Lang if she hadn't threatened him with a suit for breach of promise. There is peace between the two families now; but, when Mrs. Miller gets on the rampage sometimes, Mr. Miller mourns for his first wife more than ever.