valid, the will is, of course, waste paper,"
said Mr. Lovegrove.

"My dear Augustus, let me understand!
Who inherits the property under
the will?"

"The last person one would expect to
inherit it: Miss Desmond!"

Mrs. Lovegrove's maternal thoughts flew
back to her son. If Maud should prove to
be an heiress, and if she could be induced
to like Augustus!

She said a word or two on the subject to
her husband. But Mr. Lovegrove's feeling
on the matter was not quite in harmony
with her own.

"Augustus is a capital fellow," said the
father, " but I don't believe he has a
chance in that quarter."

"Why not? He would be a husband
any young woman ought to be proud and
thankful to win!"

"I suppose most mothers say the same of
their sons, Sarah. But put the case that
our Dora were to come into a great fortune,
would you think such a young man as
Augustus a fitting match for her?"

"That's quite different— "

"Aha! It is, is it?"

"Be so good as not to interrupt me, Mr.
Lovegrove. I mean—I mean—that I don't
know where to find such another young
man as Augustus. I'm sure any girl might
go down on her knees and thank Heaven
for such a husband as Augustus."

"Did you go down on your knees and
thank Heaven when I proposed to you,
Sally? I don't much believe in the girls
doing that sort of thing."

And then Mr. Lovegrove retired behind
his newspaper, and no more was said on
the subject between the husband and wife.

SERPENTS AT SEA.

ONCE again, we have lately been called
upon to believe that there are such
creatures as sea-serpents, despite the assertions
of naturalists that a serpent is not adapted
to a watery life. Mariners are strongly
disposed to resist and resent the dictum of
the naturalists. They point to numerous
recorded instances; and they consider it
unfair that the statements of sharp-eyed
captains and seamen should be received
with scepticism and ridicule.

Olaus Magnus, who was Archbishop of
Upsal three centuries and a half ago, was
a famous believer in such things. He
spoke of a sea-serpent two hundred feet
long by twenty feet thick, black, with a
hairy mane one cubit in length, and flaming
eyes. The monster " puts up his head on
high like a pillar, and catches any men,
and devours them." He also treated of a
blue and yellow sea-serpent forty cubits
long, though hardly as thick as the arm of
a child; it " goes forward in the sea like a
line." Becoming more precise as to places
and dates, the worthy archbishop narrated
that in the month of August, 1532, a vast
monster was thrown on the coast of Britain,
near Tinmouth (which might be either
Tynemouth or Teignmouth). The creature
was ninety feet long and twenty-five feet
thick; it had thirty ribs on each side,
mostly twenty-one feet long each; it had
three bellies and thirty throats: its head
was twenty-one feet long; and it had two
fins fifteen feet long each.

As to sea monsters, whether called
serpents or not, there has been a plentiful
crop of them, believed in, if not verified.
Dr. Rimbault has drawn attention to a
broadsheet printed in 1704, which purports
to be

          A most Strange but True
                     ACCOUNT
                      Of a Very
          LARGE SEA MONSTER!

found "in a Common Shore in New
Fleet-street, in Spittle Fields; where at
the Black Swan Alehouse thousands of
people went to see it." The broadsheet
tells us that, " Herein you may see the
dimensions of the same Surprising Creature,
with the various conjectures of several able
men concerning what may be the omen of
this Creature's leaving the sea, and groping
so far underground: the Common Shore
where it was found running above two
miles before it emptied itself at Blackwall."
Those of us who are old enough to
remember Bartlemy Fair may be able to call
to mind many Surprising Creatures and
Large Sea Monsters which would have
done to pair off with the one exhibited at
the Black Swan.

Dampier, when he visited New Holland
a hundred and forty years ago, saw, off the
coast, what he considered to be water-
serpents about four feet long, and as thick
as a man's wrist; some yellow, with dark
brown spots, some black and yellow
mottled. In 1750, according to an
account in the Gentleman's Magazine, a
fisherman on the Danube, near Linz,
plunged into the river to have a bathe.
After a dive, his long stay under water
alarmed his companions, who proceeded to