"'Let me speak plainly to you,' I added.
'If you have so much to do, you have little
time to do it in. Your hours, nay your minutes,
are numbered.'

"At these words, he lay for a few moments,
as if stunned. Then, dragging hard at my
sleeve, he exclaimed, in a fearful, gasping
voice, between a screech and a whisper—

"No, no, doctor, you must not say that!
You won't say that! Save me! Save me!
and take half my land.'

"'Not all the land on earth,' I said, 'could
save you for a second beyond the two short
hours that the progress of your disease has
marked out for you.'

"'But you must save me, doctor. You can
do it; you did it before. Think what I have
to do; what affairs I have unsettled; and
that Widow Tredgold, who prayed that I
might never see her mortgaged fields again.
What won't she say? A judgment she'll
call it. No, no, doctor, save me! Say but
the word, and I'll forgive the widow all.
And those Hexham's children—them, too—
them, too! O Lord! O Lord! who would
have to do with widows and orphans! A
man has no chance. There is no driving a
bargain with them with any comfort—only
trouble, trouble, trouble! But let them do
just as they like. Doctor, say the word, and
I'll build a church here. They'll want one.
Say it at once, doctor. I can't die, for I
have so much—so very much to do!'

"'Have you made your will?'

"'No—yes, I once did. I left my nephew
the land, and my two nieces the houses and
the money. But it would not do. When I
looked on my lands they seemed no longer
mine. These, I said, are Tom's; and when I
looked at the houses and securities, these,
I said, are Mary's and Jane's. No, no;
they were no longer mine. I could not feel
them mine, and I tore up the will.'

"'You must make another.'

"'Yes, yes, doctor—you'll give me time for
that? Oh, I have much—so very much to
do!'

"I gave the woman instructions to fetch in
pen and paper, quickly; but such things are
not soon procured in such a spot. When she
was gone, I added: 'And your Maker, who
has crowned you with so much of his wealth,
how stand your preparations with him?'

"Time enough for that, doctor. Let us
make the will first. That's the first thing—
that must be done first.'

"He endeavoured to turn himself, as if to be
ready to dictate; but sudden spasms seized
him; he gasped for breath; clutched
convulsively my sleeve; groaned, his head fell
back, and with a deep sigh, saying half-
audibly, 'I have so much—to do!' the days
of the great owner of many lands were over.
The shrewd foreseer of events, the sagacious
speculator, the keen safe bargainer, died,
with his chief work unaccomplished—the
grand bargain of existence unsecured!

"It has required the sharp ride of to-day,
over rock, and stone, and fallen trunk, up
steep jagged acclivities, and over many a
mile of dark mountain forest, amid the
moaning winds and the snapping boughs, to
dissipate the black impression of that death-
bed. But now for a sleep!"

The three friends threw themselves on
their hard couches; and, at break of day,
were travelling through a region of magnificent
mountains, with a bright sun beaming
above them amid flying clouds, towards the
hospitable home of the accomplished and
popular Æsculapius.

A ZOOLOGICAL AUCTION.

WE have been present at auctions of many
kinds; we have seen a single gold coin the
size of a five-shilling piece sold for two
hundred and sixty-five pounds. We have seen a
fossil sprat sold for as many sovereigns as it
had ribs; and we have seen an ardent
conchologist give a fabulous sum for one single
shell, and having obtained it, then and there
crush it under his foot, in order that the
specimen of this peculiar shell, in his cabinet
at home, should still remain the only
representative of the species known to exist; but
we were never present at an auction which
amused us so much as that held at the Surrey
Zoological Gardens, the twenty-seventh of
November last, when the whole collection of
animals belonging to that establishment were
brought to the hammer.

On the south side of London, zoology, it
would appear, is on the decline—music and
dancing in the ascendant; for the idea of the
proprietor is, having got rid of all his live
stock, to build a very large concert-room,
capable of holding ten thousand persons, in
which M. Jullien and his celebrated band are
to give promenade concerts, &c.

It was a dull misty morning when we
entered the gardens, some few minutes after
the sale had commenced, and they looked
the picture of wretchedness. The model of
Sebastopol, whose cannon last summer
thundered simultaneously with the cannon of its
prototype far away in the Crimea, was now
silent; the wooden Zouave and the wooden
guardsman, wearied with the long siege, were
standing at anything but 'tention; what the
Allies had done for the real Sebastopol, the
elements had done for its model—all was
ruin and desolation.

Not far from Sebastopol was the auction
going on; the head of Mr. Stevens the
auctioneer formed a centre round which the
crowd was collected. "Eight shillings for a
wax-bill and two cut-throat sparrows. Yours,
sir," were the first words that met our ears.
"A paradise grakel—nine shillings—thank
you, sir. The next lot—a red and yellow
macaw. No. There is some mistake—a yellow
and blue macaw. What shall we say for
this fine bird, gentlemen? Three pounds five—