my arm up in the air and made a pirouette
under it, of some half dozen whirls.

Half reprovingly, I shook my head, and offered
her my hand. This she understood at once.
She recognised such a mode of approach as legitimate
and proper, and with an artistic shake
of her drapery with the other hand, and a confident
smile, she signified she was ready to go
"on."

I was once on a time thrown over a horse's
head into a slate quarry, a very considerable
drop it was, and nearly fatal; on another occasion,
I was carried in a small boat over the fall
of a salmon weir, and hurried along in the flood
for almost three hundred yards; each of these
was a situation of excitement and peril, and
with considerable confusion as the consequence;
and yet I could deliberately recount you every
passing phase of my terror, from my first fright
down to my complete unconsciousness, with
such small traits as would guarantee truthfulness;
while of the scene upon which I now
adventured I preserve nothing beyond the
vaguest and most unconnected memory.

I remember my advance into the middle of
the room. I have a recollection of a large silver
tea-urn, and beyond it a lady in a turban;
another with long ringlets there was. The urn
made a noise like a small steamer, and there was
a confusion of voices—about what, I cannot tell
—that increased the uproar, and we were all
standing up and all talking together; and there
was what seemed an angry discussion, and then
the large turban and the ringlets swept haughtily
past me. The turban said, "This is too much,
sir!" and ringlets added, " Far too much, sir!"
and as they reached the door, there was Vaterchen
on his head, with a branch of candles between
his feet to light them out, and Tintefleck,
screaming with laughter, threw herself into an
arm-chair, and clapped a most riotous applause.

I stood a moment almost transfixed, then
dashed out of the room, hurried up-stairs to my
chamber, bolted the door, drew a great clothes-press
against it for further security, and then
threw myself upon my bed in one of those
paroxysms of mad confusion in which a man
cannot say whether he is on the verge of inevitable
ruin, or has just been rescued from a
dreadful fate. I would not, if even I could,
recount all that I suffered that night. There
not a scene of open shame and disgrace that
I did not picture to myself as incurring. I was
everywhere in the stocks or the pillory. I wore
a wooden placard on my breast, inscribed,
"Potts, the Impostor." I was running at top
speed before hooting and yelling crowds. I was
standing with a circle of protecting policemen
amidst a mob eager to tear me to pieces. I
sitiing on a hard stool while my hair was
being cropped a la Pentonville, and a grey suit
lay ready for me when it was done. But
enough of such a dreary record. I believe I
cried myself to sleep at last, and so soundly,
too, that it was very late in the afternoon ere I
awoke. It was the sight of the barricade I had
erected at my door gave me the clue to the
past, and again I buried my face in my hands,
and wept bitterly.

SILK FOR THE MULTITUDE.

SILK has been gradually getting dearer and
dearer, with little prospect of a more abundant
supply. The silkworms of Europe have been
stricken with disease, at various stages of their
growth, which has carried them off by millions and
millions, before they reached the spinning point.
The cause of the malady is not quite clear:
crowding of the worms in insufficiently ventilated
magnaneries," or silkworm-houses; adverse
seasons, affecting the health either of the caterpillars
themselves or of the trees on whose leaves
they feed; the taking of the eggs (or the grain,
as our continental friends call it) from moths
which have had their silk wound from them, instead
of passing the whole of their time in the
cocoon; these and other causes of failure have
been suggested, without leading to the discovery
of a remedy.

As in the case of the potato disease, endeavours
have been made to find a substitute for the
organism which appears to be lingering under a
damaged constitution. No substitute for the
potato has been found; to replace the silkworm
appeared even more difficult. If soil and atmosphere
are congenial, a plant will thrive; but, an
insect requires more: it must be fed. The feeding
part is the only reason why silk cannot be profitably
cultivated in the British islands. Shelter,
temperature, dryness moisture, and attendance,
are, as far as can be ascertained, quite sufficiently
at our command to ensure success. But the delicate
white mulberry-tree, whose leaves must constitute
the food of the ravenous larvae, refuses to
adapt itself to our short and cloudy summers. It
cannot ripen its wood to resist winter frosts, and
it drags along a pitiable sickly existence when
subjected to the severe process of being stripped
of its leaves, which often proves fatal. Even in
the climate of Italy, the mulberry-trees, stripped
for silkworms, are obliged to be treated with the
greatest care, to be swathed with wet hay-bands,
suffered to rest alternate seasons, and, in short,
to be tended like invalids whose life is at the same
time valuable and precarious.

It is clear, then, that the only available substitute
for the ordinary old-established silkworm
must be a caterpillar not merely more robust in
constitution and equally profitable as a silk-producer
(either in respect to quantity or quality),
but at least as easily, and, if possible, more
easily fed. The first hit, happy in some respects,
was most unfortunate in the main point of all.
In the beginning of 1854, news was brought to
France that there existed in India a species of
bombyx, or silkworm, which lived on the ricinus,
or castor-oil plant. We ought to call it the
castor-oil-tree; for although, here, it is a tender
annual attaining a height of from four to six feet
only, in our hottest summers and most sheltered