we have since read of a spit that flew up a
chimney, of a stirrup-iron that followed a
man through a wood, and other miserable
nonsense.

Of the use of Holy Scripture in the
writings of these people we abstain from
saying much. We will give, however, from
the pamphlet placed in our hands one
example. The writer dwells, among other
things, upon the account of Peter's coming
after his delivery from prison and knocking
at the door of Mary's house, when his friends
within, who would not at first believe the
servant's tidings that Peter stood at the gate,
said afterwards "It is his angel." "It is evident
from this," argues the Rapper's pamphlet,
"that those who were gathered together
praying, thought it possible for an angel to
knock,"—we will quote no more of the stuff.
This miserable delusion, the ghost of a dead
ghost, this clumsiest of all the cheats that ever
offered folly to be bolted by the greedy
appetite of superstition without even the
courtesy of cooking it a little, did for a
short time turn the heads of thousands
in America. But, even in America—the Land
of Promise to the Mormons, and to many other
sects of fanatics—the Rappers came at last to
be generally understood after Mrs. Culver's
deposition had been published; the "intense
excitement in all classes of society" died out;
and now this ghost of the Cock Lane Ghost,
having been laid a second time, makes a
third appearance, more faded than ever, and
by advertisement invites "the nobility and
gentry" during the present London season, to
be present at its manifestations—"God's
work, my son;"— nothing of the Treadmill
quality in it.

MY FORTUNE.

A GREAT many years ago – two-and-twenty
years to-night – I well remember what a cold,
wet night it was, with a thick sleet driving
against the windows, and a melancholy, moaning
wind creeping through the leafless branches.
It had been quite a sad winter time to us at
home – the only sad one I had ever known,
for it was just two or three weeks after the
accident had happened that first laid me on
my couch, and only a few days before, my
father had told me that I should never be
able to rise from it any more. It had been
a heavy blow to us all.

We sat together in the drawing-room all
the long evening, my father, and my mother.
and I – my sister Kate had gone the day
before to some friends of ours in the country.
One gets so soon used to misfortunes and
disappointments when just a little time has
passed; but, at the first, they are often so hard
to bear, and I think that never, at any time,
did I feel such sorrow at the thought that I
must be an invalid my whole life as I did
that night. I was only a girl – not fifteen
yet; and, at that age we are so full of bright
dreams about the future, looking forward
with such clear, joyous hopefulness to the
world that is just beginning to open before
us, stretching out our hands so eagerly to the
golden light that we think we see in the far
distance. It was so hard to have the bright
view shut out for ever, to have the bright
dreams fade away, to have all the hopes that
to me had made the thought of life so beautiful
torn from me for ever in one moment.

I had borne the knowledge of it all quite
calmly at first; it was only now that I
thought I really felt and knew all that I was
losing. But, thank God, my life has not
been what in my faithlessness I thought, that
night, it would be; thank God, that the
whole bitterness of those few hours' thought
has never come to me, as it did then, again.

Early in the evening my father had been
reading to us aloud; but since he ceased, no
word had been spoken in the room. He had
been writing for the last two hours; my
mother, sitting by the fire, was reading. The
whole house was silent; and from without,
the only sounds that came to us were the
wind howling through the trees, and the cold
rain dashing on the windows – both cheerless
sounds enough to hear. It was indeed a
night for melancholy thoughts; and to one ill
and weak as I was then, perhaps it was to
be forgiven that, thinking of the future and
the past, looking back upon the happy days
that were gone, and forward to where the
sunless clouds hung so heavily, I should
scarcely be able to press back the tears that
tried to blind me.

For when we are very young we shrink
so from feeling prison-bound; we pray so
earnestly, that if sorrow must come to us, it
may rather burst in sudden storm upon us,
and, passing away, leave the blue sky clear
again, than that our whole life should be
wrapped up in a cold grey shroud, through
which no deep sorrow can ever pierce into our
hearts – no deep joy ever come to gladden us.

And in that grey shroud I thought that
my life was to lie hidden and withered; and
now, while as yet it was only closing over
me—while with passionate resistance I would
still have struggled to tear it back, I felt that
my hands were bound.

A little thing will sometimes serve to
divert our thoughts even when they very
much engross us; and so it was that night
that I was suddenly startled out of the midst
of my reverie by two loud, sharp knocks
upon the street door – a sound certainly by no
means uncommon. And perhaps, if nothing
more had followed, I might have fallen again
into my former thoughts; but, as I lay for a
few moments listening, the door was opened,
and then there followed such strange hurried
exclamations – half of surprise, halt of alarm
– mingled with such apparently irresistible
bursts of laughter, that my first dull interest
began rapidly to change into a far more
active feeling.