though his conscience smote him for this sin—
and said with a smile that had something of
impiety in it, "If thou hast seen thy Miriam
on this spot be sure she is a creature of
flesh and blood; and we will find her abode.
Did she make no sign, and greet thee by no
gesture?" "She pointed to the river—the
place where shadows are—meaning that I must
join her in her kingdom." "Not so," said the old
man, determining—to raise his son from despair
—to be wicked, "believe not these vain things.
Thou hast been punished for pursuing a
shadow; but remember, there is no shadow
without a substance. This is a case for the
wise. The Persian physician will explain all."

So they returned to Cairo, where the Persian,
who seemed to think that the Shah's daughter
could afford to wait for him, still remained
curing extraordinary diseases simply to pass his
time. When he heard the result of the journey
he smiled strangely and said: "All goes well!
Miriam will be found. She is a living thing."
Yusof embraced the Persian in a transport of
gratitude; but Han Hamma looked at him
attentively and surprised a twinkle of merriment
in his eye. "What are this villain's
intentions?" thought he. A little while after,
whilst Yusof slept, the father and the
physician were closeted together, and the servants
said they heard peals of supernatural laughter
bursting from their mouths. It is
quite certain, that some unholy incantations
took place; for, when Yusof awoke,
he beheld Han Hamma and the Persian
physician standing before him, each holding
the tips of the rosy fingers of a young maiden
the exact counterpart of the apparition seen
in the church. He jumped at her as a cat
would upon a linnet, and insisted upon
ascertaining her reality by kissing her. All
this was very wonderful; and the scandalous,
when they heard parts of the story, insisted
that Han Hamma, being a very old man,
having little further to do with his soul, had
sold it to an individual who goes about making
bargains of that kind, for all the world
like an old clothesman. The Moslems,
however, being, as most of us are, very keen in
seeing through the superstitions of other
people, declared that all this was a piece of
manœuvring: that the Persian doctor was a
poor Coptic apothecary of Damietta, who
had been going about the world to earn a
dowry for his daughter: that he had taken
advantage of Yusof's madness to make a
good match: that Miriam had gone by his
orders and passed behind the church, so that
her shadow might be reflected on the wall:
and that Han Hamma was an old fool, who,
instead of beating his son with a good stick,
had yielded to all his whims, and had given
him a wife who would have been very glad
to marry Cardomo the Deacon. It is evident,
however, that these rumours arose from mere
malice; for although the Shah's daughter is
still waiting for her husband, yet the Persian
physician made such a fine speech at the
wedding, that it is quite impossible for him to
have been a hypocrite. He spoke with tears
in his eyes of the sin of pursuing the fancies
of our own hearts, instead of the cheerful
realities of life; and, as he placed Miriam's
hand in Yusof 's, said to her: "Take care, my
child, not to allow this young man ever to
look upon you again as a vision." There was
an odd merry menace in the bride's eyes
when she heard these words; and, if tradition
may be trusted, she took many ways of showing
that she was no shadow. However, they
lived happily together for a long time, and
their posterity is now in Cairo.

SPLITTING STRAWS.

STRAWS—no relation to our bottle of hay—
are things to show which way the wind blows
—things to which a drowning man clings when
he has no better support. Contentious men
are said to split straws when they dispute
about trifles. But straws are not always
trifling things; they sometimes play a busy
part. Let us split a few straws of this latter
sort.

There is some little magic imputed to
straws. Thus, there is a Devonshire cure for
thrush, in which the child is taken to a
running stream, a straw is drawn through its
mouth, and its mother repeats the verse,
"Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,"
&c. What is the connection between the straw
and the verse, and between either of them
and the cure, we must leave a Devonshire
mother to describe. There used formerly to
be a hidden virtue in a straw-necklace as
worn by a pilgrim. Erasmus mentions such
necklaces;and a modern attempt has been
made to explain this on the ground that wheat
straw has been regarded as an emblem of
peace, and that the necklace may have been
worn to shield the pilgrim from harm during
his wayfarings. Whether the witches cared
a straw for any one, we are not told;but they
cared for straw;insomuch that straw was
strewed on the floors of houses, five or six
centuries ago, to keep away the witches.

There are men of straw in various countries
and counties. In and near Carlisle,
there is (or was) a custom prevalent among
servants waiting to be hired;they go into
the market-place with a straw in their
mouths, as a mark whereby their wants may
be made known. A broom at the mast-head
indicates that a ship is for sale, so does a
straw in the mouth announce that a servant
is waiting to be hired. The custom has
become modernized to this extent, that the
candidate holds the straw in his hand until
he observes a probable employer looking at
him, when he suddenly whips it into his
mouth. Anderson mentions this mouth-straw
custom in one of his Cumberland Ballads:—

"At carel I staid wi' a strae i' my mouth,
The weyves com roun me in clusters :
'What weage dus te ax, canny lad?' says yeu."