information on the subject. Then, of course,
at the most critical moment he awoke.

The bright cheery breakfast-table followed.
The horse was ordered round, and while it was
being saddled, the host asked the clergyman
would he not like to see the house. The parson
was shown over, and saw much that he admired.
As they were coming down he expressed his
pleasure. The host grew downcast, and said
he was afraid he should enjoy it but a very
short time, as there was an action for ejectment
coming on at the next assizes, and through
the loss of a certain family paper, they were
almost sure to be defeated.

The parson's dream then suggested itself, and
he asked abruptly.

"Have I seen the whole house? Is there no
picture-gallery?"

"No," was the answer. "Seen the whole
house? — Stay — we have pictures up-stairs, and
there is a large room——"

They went up again. At a turn they came
to a stair which the parson seemed to recognise.
At the top of the stair they entered an
old long room, with pictures down the sides;
the curate then knew where he was. He walked
straight to a particular picture, moved it out,
and behind it was discovered a sort of recess
filled with papers; among them was found the
missing deed.

A very curious problem recurs periodically.
We hear of two members of a family—husband
and wife, father and daughter — perishing
together in some great calamity. The property
of one passing, by will, to the other, it is
necessary to prove which died first. On this point,
which perhaps no one can decide, depends the
rights of different parties. Two of these
instances, one in humble life, the other in a higher
station, add to the instances of noble behaviour
in face of death. The humbler one first.

In the year 1814, Taylor, a staff-sergeant of
artillery, was coming home with his wife from
Portugal in the transport Queen. They had
at rived at Falmouth, but a storm coming on,
drove the vessel on a rock, where she was fast
going to pieces. The sergeant was on deck as
the vessel was parting, and in a loud voice he
was heard to offer two thousand pounds to any
man who would save his wife. This appeal
having no effect, he went down himself and was
never seen again. This wealthy artilleryman
was possessed of about four thousand pounds,
which he had willed to his wife, and it depended
on which of the two died first as to whether it
should go to his relatives or to hers. The
Roman law was urged, which in absence of
evidence, assumed that the man was the stronger,
and more likely to live longer — that a woman
was more likely to exhaust herself by screaming,
and that a man's figure was more buoyant.
It was urged for the woman that she was robust
and hearty, while the sergeant was invalided
and in wretched health. But the court declined
to make any presumption, and decreed that the
proof of survivorship lay on the woman, and
that both died together.

The other case is very touching. A vessel
called the Dalhousie was coming home from
Australia, with a Mr. and Mrs. Underwood
their three children on board. Husband and
wife, by some strange presentiment, had each
made wills in each other's favour. The ship
foundered, and a solitary sailor, named Reed,
was saved. This tar gave a sketch of the
last scene in a simple fashion, yet, in the
powerfully dramatic way that arises from
simplicity. He described the family standing
together, waiting quietly for the end. The
vessel, he said, was nearly on her beam-ends.
He was trying to get the boat clear, when he
heard a scream from the mother — the little girl
had been washed away. He looked round and
saw them standing together. "They were all
clasped together; the two boys had hold of
their mother; the fathers arms were round all.
I don't believe it was a minute before a sea came
and swept them all off. They seemed to go off
all at once. I don't think they were separated.
None of them ever came in sight again." It
was decided here that this evidence was
conclusive as to husband and wife dying together,
and the doctrine now is that in such cases death
is assumed to take place at the same moment.

The "books" are full of the strange risks
and perils run by wills — craft of all shapes and
sizes which are sent out upon the waves, from
the huge vessel built on the most approved
principles, by the best workmen, and of the
best materials, warranted, its departed owner is
assured, to stand any storm, to the little cockle-shell
boat rudely put together in a few minutes,
and made of a few planks hurriedly nailed up;
the latter very often arriving quite safe, while
the former gets among the breakers, and goes
to pieces on legal rocks and sandbanks. Let
us read one of these voyages and shipwrecks.

                  MRS. KELLY'S WILL.

A good many years ago, there used to
come up to Dublin a disreputable unmarried
old gentleman, named Kelly. He had large
estates in the county Roscommon, where
his movements were watched with all the
interest of expectation by a number of
spendthrift relations. He was fond, however, of
coming up to his house in Merrion-square,
whence, though past seventy, he went forth to
indulge in the lowest and most degraded shapes
of dissipation. At night the disreputable old
gentleman used to totter forth, leaving his fine
town mansion, and make his way to some
notorious haunt. In one of these excursions he
lost a pocket-book containing five hundred
pounds in notes, and was agreeably surprised
and delighted at the honesty of a young girl
who came to him with it one morning. This
creature's character would bear even less
investigation than perhaps that of the worst of
her friends and companions, and, young as she
was, she had acquired great notoriety. Her
name was Sarah Birch. She proved to be a
woman of strong intellect and singular purpose,
and her life, thus beginning in the mire, was
to be the strangest.

The old gentleman must have been a man of