as good a village as ever lived—and cry us
down for a set of sinners, as if we had all
committed murder and that other thing!—
I have no patience with them, my lady.
And then, how is he to help us to heaven, by
teaching us our a b, ab, b a, ba? And yet,
by all accounts, that's to save poor children's
souls. O, I knew your ladyship would agree
with me. I am sure my mother was as good
a creature as ever breathed the blessed air;
and if she's not gone to heaven, I don't want
to go there; and she could not spell a letter
decently. And does Mr. Gray think God
took note of that ?"

"I was sure you would agree with me,
Miss Galindo," said my lady. "You and I
can remember how this talk about education
—Rousseau, and his writings—stirred up
the French people to their Reign of Terror,
and all those bloody scenes."

"I'm afraid that Rousseau and Mr. Gray
are birds of a feather," replied Miss Galindo,
shaking her head. "And yet there is some
good in the young man, too. He sate up all
night with Billy Davis, when his wife was
fairly worn out with nursing him."

"Did he, indeed! " said my lady, her face
lighting up, as it always did when she heard
of any kind or generous action, no matter
who performed it. "What a pity he is bitten
with these new revolutionary ideas, and is
so much for disturbing the established order
of society!"

When Miss Galindo went, she left so
favourable an impression of her visit on my
lady, that she said to me, with a pleased
smile:

"I think I have provided Mr. Homer with
a far better clerk than he would have made
of that lad Gregson in twenty years. And I
will send the lad to my lord's grieve, in
Scotland, that he may be kept out of harm's
way."

But something happened to the lad before
this purpose could be accomplished.

RAT TALES.

A PAPER to be composed of rat stories would
involve two grand literary difficulties; first,
where to begin; secondly, where to leave off.
Nevertheless, the murine rodents will well
repay the industry of any one who will
collect the curiosities of their chronicles, as
they present themselves from time to time.
Besides the generally well-known facts—such
as the threatened extinction of our original
rat by a quite modern and new-come species—
there are always floating about and rising to
the surface of the various currents of human
society very numerous traits and tales of our
long-tailed followers, which deserve at least
to be tied together in a bundle, and so
rescued from oblivion. Indeed rats, and their
hordes of kindred, are far from being
creatures of trifling importance. To treat them
with comtempt is worse than inconsiderate:
it is dangerous. We know a few of the
pranks they play, and of the threats they
hold out, on ship-board. Mice can live without
water, rats cannot; and thirsty sailors
have been obliged to share their scanty
draught with their four-footed fellow-passengers,
under pain of not having a drop left for
themselves. Shipwrecked rats have taken
possession of islands, and have exterminated
their former inhabitants, rabbits and seabirds,
the young of which latter furnished, as
long as they lasted, a series of succulent and
easily-obtained repasts. Nor would these
aggressive quadrupeds, if once emboldened
by numbers and high-feeding, greatly hesitate
to dispute the supremacy with man himself;
it is even quite conceivable that in a city
enfeebled by long-continued pestilence, war,
and desertion, a vigorous legion of sharp-set
rats might gain a temporary victory.

Quite lately, in Paris, a specimen was
given of the force in which rats can muster,
where they have gained only a provisional
footing. The historical Halles, or markets,
having been rebuilt and re-arranged on a
more commodious plan, the twenty-sixth of
October last was fixed for the moving of the
dealers in flour-stuffs, green vegetables,
poultry, and potatoes, from the ground they
have occupied near the church of Saint
Eustache, to their new stalls and shops in
the Halles Centrales. After the departure
of the human tenants of the old provisional
market, the workmen proceeded to pull
down the sheds. Beneath these sheds a
colony of rats had fixed their domicile for
some time past. A regiment of boys, armed
with sticks, and backed by all the dogs of
the quarter mustered in a pack, awaiting the
unearthing of the game from their cover. A
crowd of spectators made the lofty buildings
around re-echo with their shouts and their
bursts of laughter. Several rats, alarmed at
the disturbance and the barking of the dogs,
climbed up the persons of the lookers-on, to
find a refuge on their shoulders or on their
heads. One girl, feeling a rat taking a walk
round her neck, was so overcome with terror
that she fainted. One thousand is the
estimated number of rats who fell victims to
this inhospitable reception; but it may be
presumed that those who saved their bacon
were in considerable majority.

This is nothing to what occurs at Monte
Video (unless it is greatly changed from
what it was), where the only drawback upon
the delightful way in which an evening may
be spent, is the necessity of returning home
through long narrow streets, so infested with
voracious rats as sometimes to make the way
perilous. There are no sanitary regulations
in the town, except those provided by the
showers of rain, which, at intervals, carry
off the heaps of filth from long-established
resting-places. Around huge mountains of
carrion, vegetables, and stale fruit there
accumulated, rats muster in legions. If you attempt