who was of an exceedingly timorous
nature, lay as still as death till his nocturnal
visitor departed, nothing doubting that he
had been visited by a spirit.

The man's character for simplicity was so
generally known that people were always
playing tricks upon him, and on the very
next morning after the preceding visitation
one of his friends came into his cottage,
and told him that his old uncle, who lived
at Sens, had just died, and advised him to
set off and claim his share of the inheritance.
Jacquemin, on hearing this news, made no
more ado, but at once set out with his wife
for Sens, distant eight leagues from where
he lived. Arrived at the house of the
supposed deceased, the first person he saw was
his uncle sitting in his arm-chair. Anybody
else would have perceived that he had
been duped, but this poor fellow, firmly
believing that his uncle was dead, was seized
with sudden terror, and dragging his wife
out of the house, set off again to Bussy,
without giving time for a word of explanation.
In the meantime the frog had not
abandoned his cottage, but had taken refuge
in a hole in the flooring, from whence,
every now and then it uttered dismal croaks.
Jacquemin, convinced that he had seen his
uncle's ghost, fancied that these noises were
made by the spirit, and the agony he
underwent became insupportable. A prey to the
direst fear, Jacquemin, at last, hung himself
one morning in his hayloft. On the following
day, his wife, despairing for the loss of
her husband, threw herself into a pond, and
was found drowned,—a double suicide caused
by an imbecile superstition.

MEANING ME, SIR?

IT is not only Scrub, in the comedy, who says,
"I believe they talked of me, for they laughed
consumedly."  Scrub in the club says the
same; and in the drawing-room; ay, and in
the church. There is nowhere where Scrub
isn't perpetually on the watch, for the faintest
sound of laughter, in order to show his
logical sharpness and prove that he, Scrub, is
the subject of conversation. Nor does it
need laughter to attract his notice. Hissing
would do just as well. Even silence has its
stings. "They must be thinking of me," he
thinks, "they say so little."  "They must be
trying to spite me,—they look so happy."
"She must be utterly forgetful of me,—she
smiles so sweetly."  Scrub, in short, is a
disgusting fellow, whom all of us meet fifty
times a day—apt to take offence at imaginary
neglect, attributing false motives to the most
reasonable actions; egotistic, exacting, self-
tormenting—a prose Othello, whose lago is
his own insufferable vanity, which makes him
the victim of jealousy and suspicion, and
who is only prevented from having a real
Desdemona by never having had manly
confidence enough in any of Eve's daughters to
confer on her the inestimable honour of bearing
his name. A happy escape for Eve's
daughter, as you will find if you peruse the
following lines, which I hope will be
seriously laid to heart by any of her numerous
sisters who are about to marry Scrubs.

Delamour Wormwood, the chief of this
distinguished family, was engaged to Phillis
Daisyfield, with his own entire approbation.
She was the gentlest and simplest of her sex;
very beautiful and very young; never
laughed unnecessarily, though she had the
reddest lips and whitest teeth in the world;
and, therefore, Delamour never suspected she
was talking disrespectfully of him. And,
indeed, she was so tender-hearted, and so
modest, and believing, she never spoke
disrespectfully of anybody. She thought
Delamour very handsome, and in this she was
not altogether mistaken; she believed a great
part of the vows of attachment he made to
her, and in this she was ridiculously wrong,
for among the vows was one of complete
confidence and unbounded trust. As he said
the words he watched the expression of her
face,

"You don't believe me," he said.

"Oh, yes, I do. What interest can you
have in saying so, if you don't feel so?"

"But your eyes are inexpressive, your
mouth is closed, your cheeks are neither
flushed nor pale. I should like to see you
more agitated."

"Oh, so I should be," said the innocent
Phillis, "if I did not believe you. But as
it is, why should I change my ordinary
looks?"

"Well, there may be something in that,"
said Delamour; but, still he was not perfectly
pleased with the gentle Phillis's
self-possession.

Phillis lived with her aunt at Thistledale,
in Hertfordshire, and had only a brother who
could have any right to interfere with her
proceedings. He was a gallant lieutenant in
the Blazing Hussars, and was stationed so far
away that it had not been thought worth
while to ask his consent to his sister's becoming
Mrs. Wormwood. Besides, he was soon
coming home, and the wedding was not
intended for at least a year.

Delamour, radiant with delight, got into
the railway-carriage to visit Mrs. Ogleton.
This was the name of Phillis's aunt; and as
the train stopped at Neddithorpe, the
enraptured lover stepped upon the platform and
ordered a fly for Thistledale. While he
waited for the vehicle, he walked to and
fro in deep meditation on his own perfections,
and took no notice of two other gentlemen
who had apparently arrived by the same
train:  two pleasant-visaged, loud-voiced,
military-looking men, swinging their canes
or switching their lower integuments, as is
the habit of English cavaliers.

"Ha, ha!" laughed one, continuing a
conversation which had been interrupted by the