"I was not prepared for this part of the
hallucination," he said, hurriedly. "You will
acquit me of any participation. Good Heaven!
I fear he is gone."

It was not so; the invalid had only sunk into
an exhausted slumber—a state which, in his
case, as in some others, proved to be the
precursor of a favourable change.

From the moment when his poor disordered
brain pictured that he had secured my happiness,
and that of his friend, he began to rally. It is true
that, as reason regained her sway, he became
fully sensible of his little mistake; it could not,
however, be recalled, nor was it so embarrassing
as might be imagined.

I know not how it came about—whether from
the community of interest engendered in the
sick-room, or how far the noble-hearted giant
himself contributed to the result but my
acquaintance with Colonel Dolmage, so oddly
commenced, ripened into mutual regard and
esteem. In fact, about six months after the
scene above described, our hands were a second
time united: this time with the Church's blessing
in addition to that of Mr. O'Leary. We
were married at the chapel of the British
embassy in Paris. A French journal, reporting the
occurrence, remarked as a singular feature that
the monsieur who assisted as groomsman, had
two metres fifty-five millimetres of height.

Years after that happy day, I was sitting in
my pretty Irish garden, with my tall cousin, of
whom I had long since lost all fear, when it
came into my head to ask him on what possible
word of mine he had based his early impression
that I had conceived an especial personal
interest in him?

He spoke of my embarrassment, my blushes.
&c. &c.

"But the word, cousin, the word. The
mysterious 'expression' of which Austin spoke?"

"Well, do you recollect my asking you what
moved you thus keenly? And do you remember
what you replied?"

"Perfectly: 'Your size.'"

"Good; you are answered."

"Am I?"

I pondered for a moment; then I asked:

"Cousin, how would you spell 'size'?"

"How? S—i—g—h—s."

"No, no, my dear cousin; S—i—z—e. It
makes all the difference."

"A very considerable difference," said my
companion, rather thoughtfully. " To be sure.
Size."

FANCIFUL INSANITY.

SEVERAL classifications have been suggested
of the varieties which madness assumes, but the
present notes are confined to that ideal or fanciiul
insanity exhibiting vivacity of imagination,
when the brain is filled with strange and
whimsical conceits.

An educated man, whose mind had a
philosophic turn, believed that the entire
surface of the globe was formed of thin glass,
beneath which he perceived and traced
serpents of all sizes without number. He
trembled and feared to tread on the brittle
expanse, lest it should break and he should fall
through and be devoured by the monsters he
saw beneath. Another man of letters fancied
that his legs were made of glass, and that they
would inevitably break if he rose from his bed
and stood upon them. A poet of Amsterdam
carried the notion further, for he absolutely could
not be induced to sit down—under an
apprehension that his brittle and transparent
foundation, if it touched a chair, would be shivered
to atoms. A once eminent painter remained a
whole winter in bed, imagining that his bones
were as soft and flexible as wax, and that if he
attempted to stand upon them they would give
way under his weight, and his body would sink
down into a misshapen mass. Others have
fancied themselves made of butter, and have
been fearfully apprehensive of melting away.
Mr. Haslam mentions the case of a man of letters
who, in addition to wearing a thick flannel night-
cap, always slept with his head in a tin saucepan,
in order, as he said, to exclude the intrusions of
the sprites. The feature in the human face
which has occasioned most uneasiness in the
minds of madmen has been the nose. One man
believed that his nose had grown to such a
size, that he was afraid of stirring out of
doors, or of being seen in the streets, lest
people should tread on it as they passed him
by. Another imagined that his nasal organ
dangled from his face like the proboscis of
an elephant, and that it was constantly so
much in his way at dinner, that he could not
prevent it from dipping into and floating in the
dishes. We read of a man who not only saw
but felt, a pair of stag's antlers growing from his
forehead; and of persons of both sexes who
fancied themselves grains of wheat, and were in
constant apprehension of being gobbled up by
fowls. In an Irish lunatic asylum there were,
not long ago, three patients whose insanity
assumed a most whimsical turn. One was
persuaded he was an umbrella, and would remain
for hours lying up against the wall in a corner
of his apartment. Another fancied he was a
clock, and would repeat the tick and the
motion of the pendulum until nature was
exhausted. The third patient believed he was a
hen, engaged in the process of incubation, and
used to remain for hours squatting over
imaginary eggs. The quiet perseverance of this
poor lunatic had something so indescribably
earnest about it, as almost to neutralise the
ludicrous effect of the prolonged and barren process
in which days and months were consumed.

A patient from Berkshire, in Bethlehem
Hospital, felt convinced that he had been hatched at
his father's door by the sun, and that he had
commenced his existence as a flea, but had been,
when two years old, metamorphosed into a boy.
Another believed that he was Atlas, carrying the
world on his back; and always expressed
intense alarm lest it should fall and crush, not
only himself but all mankind. Baron Larrey