dislike to Pastor Tappau was so great that she
could hardly sympathise with any misfortunes
that befel him or his family.

Towards evening Mr. Nolan came in. In
general, so high did party spirit run, Grace
Hickson only tolerated his visits, finding herself
often engaged at such hours, and being too
much abstracted in thought to show him the
ready hospitality which was one of her most
prominent virtues. But to-day, both as bringing
the latest intelligence of the new horrors sprung
up in Salem, and as being one of the Church
militant (or what the Puritans considered
as equivalent to the Church militant) against
Satan, he was welcomed by her in an unusual
manner.

He seemed oppressed with the occurrences of
the day; at first it appeared to be almost a
relief to him to sit still, and cogitate upon them,
and his hosts were becoming almost impatient
for him to say something more than mere
monosyllables, when he began:

"Such a day as this I pray that I may never
see again. It is as if the devils whom our Lord
banished into the herd of swine had been
permitted to come again upon the earth. And I
would it were only the lost spirits who were
tormenting us; but I much fear that certain of
those whom we have esteemed as God's people
have sold their souls to Satan, for the sake of a
little of his evil power, whereby, they may afflict
others for a time. Elder Sherringham hath lost
this very day a good and valuable horse, wherewith
he used to drive his family to meeting, his
wife being bedridden."

"Perchance," said Lois, " the horse died of
some natural disease."

"True," said Pastor Nolan, " but I was going
on to say, that as he entered into his house, full
of dolour at the loss of his beast, a mouse ran
in before him so sudden that it almost tripped
him up, though an instant before there was no
such thing to be seen; and he caught at it with
his shoe and hit it, and it cried out like a
human creature in pain, and straight ran up
the chimney, caring nothing for the hot flame
and smoke."

Manasseh listened greedily to all this story,
and when it was ended he smote upon his breast,
and prayed aloud for deliverance from the power
of the Evil One; and he continually went on
praying at intervals through the evening with
every mark of abject terror on his face and in
his manner—he, the bravest, most daring
hunter in all the settlement. Indeed, all the
family huddled together in silent fear, scarcely
finding any interest in the usual household
occupations. Faith and Lois sat with arms
entwined, as in former days before the former had
become jealous of the latter; Prudence asked
low, fearful questions of her mother and of the
pastor as to the creatures that were abroad,
and the ways in which they afflicted others;
and when Grace besought the minister to
pray for her and her household, he made
a long and passionate supplication that none
of that little flock might ever so far fall away
into hopeless perdition as to be guilty of
the sin without forgiveness—the Sin of Witch-
craft.

OUR EYE-WITNESS AND AN INFANT
MAGNET.

YOUR Eye-witness was thoroughly sick of
Smallport. He had used it up utterly. He had
wrung it dry. The sight of canvas shoes and
round straw hats had become a positive misery
and nuisance to him, and he was even tired of
paying twice the proper amount for every article
which he found it necessary to consume.

What was it, then, that caused your Eye-witness
to write to London putting off the matter
of business which demanded his presence there?

It was THE INFANT MAGNET!

Passing by the shut-up "Rooms" which are
to be found in most watering-places, and which
are almost always, like these in question, shut
up, your Eye-witness observed, pasted upon the
door-post, a large printed bill, which at once
caught and riveted his attention.

It was a good and promising placard, surely.
It told the public of Smallport that Miss
Rebecca Salamans (better known as the Infant
Magnet) would appear for that night only at
the Assembly Rooms, and would, " besides
exhibiting other phenomena," go through certain
performances in animal magnetism, a list of
which (including an act called the "Rigid
Legs") was appended beneath.

The " Rigid Legs!" Was it for one moment
to be supposed that the E. W. could go
away from Smallport without seeing the rigid
legs? Nor let any ill-disposed person hastily
jump to the conclusion that the E. W. was, in his
keen longing to witness the act thus designated,
influenced by any base or unworthy motive.
No; the legs here spoken of were the legs of
Master Raphael, and Master Raphael was the
Magnet's brother. All here is propriety, and
equal rigidity of principle—and of leg.

And as it appeared, on further perusal of the
advertisement, of body too. This Magnetic
Infant, besides being able so to affect the lower
limbs of Master Raphael that they shall become
immovable as bars of iron, is in the habit of
producing (by a few passes) such a condition of
his entire frame, that his head being placed on
one chair and his heels upon another, he can
without other support sustain the weight of a
gentleman of twenty-two stone sitting down
upon him. Nor is this all. Master Raphael's
phrenological sensitiveness is, it seems, very
great. On his organ of music being touched by
the Infant Magnet he will beat time " so
accurately, that, on a slow measure being changed
in any part for a quick air, no mistake will occur
in his accompaniment." A degree of sensitiveness
this, of which one has perhaps met with an
instance or two before. " Mutatis muntandis,"
the bill goes on to say, " similar results will be
obtained by touching other organs." The organ
of combativeness, by-the-by, it is pleasant to
find, is singularly under control, for we read