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Peace, Peace, comes at last, with her garland of white; Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night; The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun; We echo its words,--We are One! We are One!

WERE THEY CRICKETS?

About seven years ago, the following paragraph appeared in the New York daily papers;--

"MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.--A young man named George Snyder left the residence of his parents in Thirty-Third Street, last Friday evening without his hat and taking nothing with him but the suit which he was wearing , and has not yet been heard from. It is feared that he has wandered, in some sudden mental derangement, off the wharves. Any information which may lead to his discovery will be gratefully received by the distressed parents."

No information was ever received until the 1st of April last, when the missing man himself returned to his father's house, as mysteriously as he went, and was welcomed as one risen from the dead. I am that George Snyder, and propose to give now a brief account of that strange going and coming. Since April last I have been engaged, as well as the excitement of listening to the narrative of the great events which had taken place in my native land during my absence would allow me, in preparing for publication a history of my observations, made during the six years' absence; but of this history I can now give merely an outline.

On the night of my departure, November 5, 1858, I was sitting in my own room, studying Gauss's "Theoria Motus"; and, as was often the case with me, I grew so absorbed in the study as to lose all consciousness of outward things beyond the limits of the single page before me. I had forgotten the time of night,--nay, I could not have recalled the time of my life, whether I was in college or had graduated, whether I had entered on my profession or was preparing for it. My loss of the sense of space was as absolute as my loss of the sense of time, and I could not have said whether I was in my father's house in New York, or in my room in Wentworth Hall, or in my office in Jersey City. I only knew that the page, illuminated by a drop gas-light, was before me, and on it the record of that brilliant triumph of the human intellect, the deduction of a planet's entire orbit from observations of its position.

I tremble even now as I recall the instantaneous effect of those words. While I was still speaking, all earthly things vanished suddenly from my sight. There was no floor beneath me, no ceiling above, no walls around. There was even no earth below me, and no sky above. Look where I would, nothing was visible but my own body. My clothing shone with a pale blue light, by which I could peer into the surrounding darkness to the distance, as I should judge, of about twenty or thirty feet. I was apparently hanging, like a planet, in mid-ether, resting upon nothing. Horrible amazement seized me, as the conviction flashed through me like an electric shock that I must have lost my reason. In a few moments, however, this terror subsided; I felt certain that my thoughts were rational, and concluded that it was some affection of the optic nerve. But in a very few seconds I discovered by internal sensations that I was in motion, in a rapid, irregular, and accelerating motion. Awful horror again seized me; I screamed out a despairing cry for help, and fainted.

When I recovered from the swoon, I found myself lying on a grassy bank near a sea-shore, with strange trees waving over me. The sun was apparently an hour high. I was dressed as on the preceding evening, without a hat. The air was deliciously mild, the landscape before me lovely and grand. I said to myself: "This is a beautiful dream; it must be a dream." But it was too real, and I said, "Can it be that I am asleep?" I pinched my arms, I went to the sea and dipped my head in the waters,--'t was in vain; I could not awake myself, because I was already awake.

"No!" I replied, "you are not awake." Do you not remember that saying of Engel, that when men dream of asking whether they are awake, they always dream that they answer yes? But I said, I will apply two tests of my own which have often, when I was dreaming, convinced me that I was asleep and thus enabled me to awake. I gathered some pebbles and began to count them and lay them in heaps, and count them over again. There were no discrepancies between my counts; I was awake. Then I took out my pencil and memorandum-book to see whether I could solve an equation. But my hand was seized with trembling, and wrote without my assistance or guidance these words: "I, Copernicus, will comfort your friends. Be calm, be happy, you shall return and reap a peculiar glory. You, first of the inhabitants of Earth, have visited another planet while in the flesh. You are on an island in the tropical regions of Mars. I will take you home when you desire it,--only not now."

It would be in vain for me to attempt to recall and to describe the whirling tumult of thoughts and emotions which this message created. I sat down upon the grass, and for a time was incapable of deliberate thought or action. At length I arose and paced up and down the turf, staring around upon the changeless blue of the seaward horizon, the heaving swell of the ocean, the restless surf fretting against the shore, and the motionless hills that rose behind each other inland, and lured the eye to a distant group of mountains. The coloring of sea and land was wonderfully fine; both seemed formed of similar translucent purple; and despite the excited state of my feelings and the stupendous nature of the words which I had just seen written by my own pencil, I was impressed with a sense of grandeur and of beauty which presently filled me with faith and hope. I assured myself that the spirit to whom permission had been given thus to transport me from my home was as kind as he was powerful. He had set me down in a beautiful country, he had promised to return me home when I desired it,--"only not now";--by which I concluded that he wished me to think calmly over the question before asking to return. And why, I added, should I be in haste? Copernicus, if it be he, promises to comfort my parents,--the island looks fertile,--if I find no inhabitants, I can be a new Robinson Crusoe,--and when I have explored the island thoroughly, I will ask this spirit to carry me back to New York, where I shall publish my observations, and add a new chapter to our knowledge of the solar system.

I walked toward the mountains, among strange shrubs, and under strange trees. Some were in blossom, others laden with fruit, all in luxuriant foliage. As I walked on, the scenery became more and more charming; but I saw no signs of man, nor even of birds, nor beasts. Beautiful butterflies and other insects were abundant; in a little stream I saw minnows, and a fish elegantly striped with silver and gold; and as I followed up the brook, occasionally a frog, startled at my approach, leaped from the bank and dived into the water with a familiar cry. I wandered on until I judged it to be nearly noon, and, growing hungry, ventured to taste a fruit which looked more edible than any I had seen. To my delight I found it as delicious as a paw-paw. I dined on them heartily, and, sitting under the shade of the low trees from which I had gathered them, I fell into a reverie which ended in a sound sleep.

When I awoke it was night. I walked out of the little grove in which I was sheltered, that I might have a clearer view of the stars. I soon recognized the constellations with which I had been familiar for years, though in somewhat new positions. Conspicuous near, the horizon was the "Milk Dipper" of Sagittarius, and I instantly noticed, with a thrill of intense surprise, that the planet Mars was missing! When I had first awakened, and stepped out of the grove, I had only a dim remembrance in my mind of having rambled in the fields and fallen asleep on the grass; but this planet missing in the constellation Sagittarius recalled to me at once my miraculous position on the planet Mars. Here was a confirmation unexpected and irrefragable of the truth of what Copernicus had written by my hand. The excited whirl of thoughts and emotions thus revived banished sleep, and I walked back and forward under the grove, and out on the open turf, gazing again and again at the constellation in which, only two days before, I had from the Jersey City ferryboat seen the now missing planet. At length Sagittarius sank behind the mountains, and the Twins arose out of the sea. With new wonder and admiration I beheld in Castor's knee the steady lustre of a planet which I had not known before,--an overwhelming proof of the reality of my asserted position on the planet Mars. For as this new planet was exactly in the opposite pole of the point whence Mars was missing, what could it be but my native Earth seen as a planet from that planet which had now become my earth? You may imagine that this new vision excited me too much to allow sleep to overpower me again until nearly daybreak.

After supper my captor led me to a separate arbor, and pointed to a bed of soft, white straw, upon which I immediately stretched myself, and he retired. Presently I arose and attempted to go out, but found that he had fastened the door on the outside. It was not pleasant to find myself a prisoner; but that subject was instantly driven from my mind as I looked out through the lattice and saw Sagittarius, with no signs of the planet Mars. I returned to my straw; and, after the excitement of the day had subsided, I fell asleep and slept until after sunrise. My captor soon after appeared, bringing a basket of delicious fruits and bread. When I had eaten freely, he allowed me to wander at will, setting first a boy on top of my arbor, apparently to watch that I did not wander out of sight. I walked about and found that the homestead of my captor consisted of seven arbors in a grove of fruit-trees, with about a dozen acres of corn adjoining. This corn is a perennial, like our grass, and a field once planted yields in good land fifteen or twenty crops with only the labor of gathering. It then becomes exhausted, and the canes are burnt at a particular season, which destroys the roots, and prepares the ground admirably for fruit-trees. There were no stables about the place, and there are no horses nor cows on the island,--indeed, frogs and toads are the highest vertebrates known there.

About the middle of the forenoon, my host, or captor, came, guided by his boy, who, flying from arbor to arbor and from tree to tree, had kept me in sight during my ramble. He brought with him seven others, bearing a hammock through the air, four flying on either side, and lowered it near me in the field. He then made signs to me to lie in the hammock. It was with some difficulty that I persuaded myself to risk it; but I thought at last that, after coming safely from the Earth to Mars, I would not shrink from a little excursion in the atmosphere of that planet. I laid myself in the hammock, and soon saw that the seven friends of my host were as much afraid of taking it up as I had been of getting in it. However, they mustered courage, and, spreading their wings, raised me up in the air. I was, I suppose, a deal heavier than they expected; for they set me down upon the top of the first knoll in their path, and set me down so suddenly that I was aware of their intention only by being dashed against the ground. I sprang up, and began to rub the bruised spots, while my winged bearers folded their wings, and lay panting on the turf. They had not taken me a half-mile. When they were rested, my host motioned to me to resume my place; and the eight again bore me, with more deliberate stroke, a full mile before dropping me again. But they were so much exhausted, and took so long to rest, that I suggested, by signs and motions, that I should rather walk; and so for the next mile they carried the empty hammock, flying very slowly, while I walked rapidly, or ran, after them. When, in my turn, I became exhausted, they motioned me into the hammock again. In this way, partly by being carried and partly on my own feet, I at length reached an immense arbor, in which several hundred of these creatures were assembled. It was the regular day of meeting for their Society of Natural History. One of our party first went in, and, I suppose, announced our arrival, then came out and spoke to my captor, who beckoned me to follow, and led me in. I was placed on a platform, and he then made a polyphonous speech, without a consonant sound in it; describing, as I afterwards learned, the history of my discovery and capture, and going into some speculations on my nature. Then the principal men crowded about me and felt me, and led me about the hall, until, what with the landings of the hammock and the handling of these sons of Mars, I was sore and wearied beyond expression.

At length I was taken to a small arbor, where I was allowed to rest and to take food. The Society then, as I have since been told, held a long discussion, and finally appointed a committee to examine me, observe my habits, and report at the next regular meeting. There is no moon at Mars; but the regular meeting was on the twenty-eighth day following,--the seven notes of music having given them the idea of weeks.

Extra ropes were then attached to the hammock, and sixteen of them carried me back to my captor's homestead. That night I fell asleep before it was dark enough to see the stars, and assure myself, by a glance at the Milk Dipper, that it was not all a dream; but I awoke before daylight, and gazed through the lattice at the Twins, and at the Earth, shining with steady lustre upon Castor's knee.

I will not weary the reader with details from my journal of each succeeding day. The committee came day after day and studied me. They induced me to lay aside part of my clothing that they might examine me more minutely, especially about the joints of the ankle, the knee, shoulder, and elbow; and were never weary of examining my neck and spinal column. I could not talk to them, and they had never seen a vertebrate higher in organization than their frogs and toads; wherefore, at the end of four weeks, they reported "that I was a new and wonderful gigantic Batrachian"; that "they recommended the Society to purchase me, and, after studying my habits thoroughly, dissect me, and mount my skeleton." Of which report I was, of course, in blessed ignorance for a long, long while.

So my captor and his friends took the kindest care of me, and endeavored to amuse and instruct me, and also to find out what I would do if left to myself,--taking notes assiduously for the memoirs of their Society. I can assure the reader that I, on my part, was not idle, but took notes of them with equal diligence, at which imitation of their actions they were greatly amused. But I flatter myself that, when my notes, now in the hands of the Smithsonian Institution, are published, with the comments of the learned naturalists to whom the Institution has referred them, they will be found to embody the most valuable contributions to science. My own view of the inhabitants of Mars is that they are Rational Articulates. Rational they certainly are, and, although I am no naturalist, I venture to pronounce them Articulates. I do not mean anything disrespectful to these learned inhabitants of Mars in saying that their figure and movements reminded me of crickets: for I never have watched the black field-crickets in New England, standing on tiptoe to reach a blade of grass, without a feeling of admiration at their gentlemanly figure and the gracefulness of their air. But what is more important, I am told that Articulates breathe through spiracles in the sides of their bodies; and I know that these planetary men breathe through six mouths, three on either side of the body, entirely different in appearance and character from the seventh mouth in their face, through which they eat.

In the volumes of notes which will be published by the Smithsonian Institution as soon as the necessary engravings can be finished, will also appear all that I was able to learn concerning the natural history of that planet, under the strict limitation, to which I was subjected, of bringing to Earth nothing but what I could carry about my own person.

The signification of these chords is by no means arbitrary; but, on the contrary, their application is according to fixed rules and according to aesthetic principles; so that the highest poetry of these people becomes, in the very process of utterance, the finest music; while the utterance of base sentiments, or of fustian, becomes, by the very nature of the language, discordant, or at best vapid and unmelodious.

It will readily be imagined that I was a very long while in learning to understand a speech so entirely different in all its principles from our earthly tongues. And when I began to comprehend it, as spoken by my new friends, I was unable, having but one mouth, to express anything but the simplest ideas. However, I had Yankee ingenuity enough to supply in some measure my want of lateral mouths.

My captor daily allowed me more and more freedom, and at length permitted me to wander freely over the whole island, simply taking the precaution to send a boy with me as a companion and guide, in case I should lose my way. In one of these rambles I discovered a swamp of bamboos, and by the aid of my pocket-knife cut down several and carried them home. Then, with great difficulty and interminable labor, I managed to make a sort of small organ, a very rude affair, with six kinds of pipes, six of each kind. A bamboo pipe, with a reed tongue of the same material, or even one with a flute action, was not so sweet in tone as the voice of my friends; but they saw what I was trying to do, and could, after growing familiar with the sound of my pipes, decipher my meaning. The astonishment of my captor and his family at finding that their monster Batrachian could not only express simple ideas with his one mouth, but all the most complex notions by pieces of bamboo fastened together and held on his knees before him, was beyond measure. From this time my progress in learning their speech was very rapid; and within a year from the completion of my organ I could converse fluently with them. Of course, I had not mastered all the intricacies of their tongue, and even up to the time of my leaving them I felt that I was a mere learner; nevertheless, I could understand the main drift of all that they said; and what was equally gratifying to me, I could express to them almost anything expressible in English, and they understood me.

My life now became a very happy one; I became sincerely attached to my captor and to his family, and was charmed with their good sense and their kind feeling. I flatter myself also that they, in their turn, were not only proud of their Batrachian, but grew fond of him. They showed me more and more attention, gave me a seat at their table, and furnished me with clothes of their own fashion. I must confess, however, that the openings on the sides for their mouths, and on the back for their wings, were rather troublesome to me, and occasioned me several severe colds, until I taught them to make my vesture close about my chest.

When visitors came to their house I was always invited to bring out my organ and converse with them. Strangers found some difficulty in understanding me; but with the family I conversed with perfect ease, and they interpreted for me. I found that the universal theory concerning me was, that I came from beyond a range of mountains on the nearest continent, beyond which no explorations had ever been made. Concerning my mode of crossing the steep and lofty barrier on the continent, and the deep, wide strait which separated the island from the mainland, they speculated in vain. I humored this theory at first, as far as I could without positive statements of falsehood, for I knew that, if I told the truth, it would be absolutely incredible to them; and I did not reveal to my Martial friends my own terrestrial, to them celestial character, until just before my departure.

But my psychical character perplexed them much more than my zo?logical. It seems that these islanders had been accustomed to call themselves, in their own tongue, "rational animals with sentiments of justice and piety,"--all which, be it remembered, is expressed in their wonderful language by a simple harmonic progression of four full chords. But here was a Batrachian,--one of the lower orders of creation, in their view,--from whom the Almighty had withheld the gift of a rational soul, who nevertheless appeared to reason as soundly as they,--to understand all their ideas,--not only repeating their sentences on his bamboo pipes, but commenting intelligently on them; and who not only gave these proofs of an understanding mind, but of a heart and soul, manifesting almost Mavortian affection for his captor's family, and occasionally betraying even the existence of some religious sentiments. Was all this delusive? Did this Batrachian really possess a rational soul, with sentiments of piety and justice, or only a wonderfully constructive faculty of imitation?

Do you see no reason why he should fear such a metamorphosis? Surely you must. From time immemorial, men have shuddered at the thought of becoming a spirit, an infinite being composed chiefly of memory; a purely intellectual organism having nothing material in its make-up. Now if men are disturbed, as they are, at the prospect of becoming ideas, why should not ideas be disturbed at the prospect of becoming men? Is it likely that an idea, immune from all the evils of mortal existence, superior to the weaknesses of the flesh and possessing, at least, a potential immortality, would be pleased with the prospect of becoming mere man? Would an idea willingly abandon the clear atmosphere of a purely intellectual plane for the muggy mists and murky fogs of London? Assuredly not.

It is easy enough to see why an idea should fear to become a man. And when we consider such an idea as Chesterton, the matter is even clearer. Whimsicalities and contradictions which may have been useful and even ornamental in the fictitious Chesterton--in Chesterton the idea--might, Sir, prove most embarrassing to Chesterton the British Subject. You can not prosecute an idea for treason, nor sue it for damages. You can not even confine an idea in a mad-house for being crazy. Most ideas are crazy; none more so perhaps than the one which I am presenting to you now. It is true that a few ideas have been confined in a mad-house, but of those few which have been shut up with the persons claiming them, the great majority have been quite sane. Just as many sane men are devoted to crazy ideas, so many sane ideas are devoted to crazy men; so devoted to them that they will follow them anywhere--even to a mad-house.

I am, Sir, A. VISIONARY.

FROM A HUNCHBACK

DEAR SIR: I had the misfortune, through no fault of my own, to be born a hunchback. This, in itself, Sir, is an affliction sufficient to render my life a hard one and to embitter such happiness as I may snatch from the hands of fate; but it is an affliction for which, as far as I know, nobody is to blame, and one, therefore, which I must bear with such patience and fortitude as I can command. But I bear in common with other cripples a far greater burden than mere physical disability, and that is the contempt and pity of my fellow men.

I find that some men regard me with contempt alone, some with contempt and pity intermingled, and some with simple pity--and of the three I think the last is, perhaps, the hardest to endure with equanimity, since it is the most sincere feeling of superiority which prompts it. I do not ask the pity of my fellows; I consider myself in much better case than many men who have straight backs and smooth shoulders; and certainly I can not see why I should deserve the contempt of any one merely because I happen to have been born with a body unlike that of the majority of men. Yet I find the hump upon my back a hindrance in every venture that I undertake.

A few years ago when I was younger and more sanguine than I am now, when I still had faith in the innate fairness of human nature and in the spirituality of the love of women, I fell in love. Fortunately, as I thought then, I had not come into the world naked if I had come crooked, for I possessed a comfortable balance at the bank; a sum of money in point of fact which was far in excess of the financial resources of any of the other young men of my acquaintance. Counting upon the good times which my supply of ready money seemed likely to afford them, a number of the more prominent young men of my native town had taken the trouble to cultivate my society during their college days when they were often short of money and found it convenient to have a friend who could always be relied on to help out in a pinch and who was not at all inclined to play the dun if payments were somewhat slow. Having, as I say, availed themselves of my generosity and cultivated my company in those lean years of study, these young men, upon entering into the world of business and society, could not, with a good grace, begin to ignore me altogether, and they therefore made it a point to look me up now and then and to invite me about with them to such functions and entertainments as I might enjoy, and at the same time, enter into unhandicapped by my physical deformity.

I could not, of course, play tennis, golf or any game of that sort. I was, in truth, deterred from entering into any such sport more by my natural horror of appearing ridiculous than by reason of an actual lack of the strength necessary to swing a racket or handle a club. The fact is, I am not especially weak physically, having always taken great care of my health and having practised with some success such physical exercises as might be practised in the privacy of my own chambers or such as would not be likely to excite comment. But no matter how muscular a man may be, he can not but appear absurd when he goes about carrying a golf club nearly as tall as himself or rushing about a tennis net like a lame camel.

It was during this time, when I was almost enjoying life like an ordinary man, owing to the careful manner in which my acquaintances concealed their dislike and contempt for my crooked back, that I met and fell in love with a girl who seemed to me, at the time, a charming and sweet-souled young woman. I saw a great deal of her, owing to the fact that we were both of musical tastes and often played and sang together, and it was not long before I came to the conclusion that if I were ever to marry I might as well be about it then as any time, and especially since I had the necessary mate at hand, so to speak. To think was to act with me in those days, and I put the matter to her bluntly the very first time I saw her after forming my resolution in this respect. You may not believe me, but I swear to you that I am telling the truth when I say that I had grown so accustomed to having my friends ignore my infirmity that I had quite forgotten to take it into account in the case of the young woman. In fact, I would have considered it an unjust aspersion of her character to think her capable of holding such a thing against me, our relations having been always of the most spiritual.

You can imagine, then, the shock it gave me when I saw the horror growing in her eyes which I had so often surprised in the eyes of strangers! You can fancy, perhaps, the physical and mental anguish I suffered in that moment when I realized that even to her I was not as other men--that she had played with me as one might play with a child, and that she would no sooner think of becoming my wife than she would think of wedding with an educated baboon. And yet, Sir, within the space of two years I saw that same young woman stand at the altar with a senile and decrepit old rou? who had never possessed the tenth part of my own intellectuality and who had absolutely nothing to recommend him but a fortune, somewhat smaller than my own, and a straight back. I am told that she is not happy with him, and small wonder, since he is never at home save when he is too drunk to be elsewhere; but even so, I doubt if she has ever regretted her answer to me, so strong is the prejudice of the normal person against all forms of physical deformity. The fact that her husband is more crooked in his morals than I am in my back would, I dare say, have no weight whatever with her.

Shakespeare, learned in the ways of human nature, laid particular stress upon the physical shortcomings of Richard the Third, well knowing that no amount of mere wickedness would serve to turn the audience against him so strongly as a hump upon his back. The villain of the play, if he be handsome and brave, will often oust the hero from his rightful place in the esteem of the audience, so that presently the pit, the galleries and the boxes are united as one man in wishing him success in his villainy, or at least in wishing him immunity from his well-deserved punishment. Instead of hissing him, the spectators are moved to applaud him. And for this reason the playwrights and the novelists have, until late years when the worship of virtue is no longer considered an essential part of art, caused the villain to appear a coward or burdened him with some physical deformity. And the devil of it all is, Sir, that most of the villains in real life are like the villains of the stage who oust the hero. Charles Lamb once said that it is a mistake to assume that all bullies are cowards; and in my opinion it is an even greater mistake to assume that a villain can not be attractive. If villains had no charm, villainy would soon cease through want of success.

But Byron's case is not the only one I have in mind. It is a common thing for murderers in jail to receive flowers and sentimental letters from women. Women, too, who have never so much as set eyes upon them and who know them only by the stories of their crimes in the newspapers. The maddest of religious fanatics can always count upon a goodly number of women as converts. The taint of insanity itself seems to be less repulsive to women than physical deformity. And the men are little better than the women. A man will often knowingly wed with a fool because she has a pretty face, or vote a rogue into office because he thinks him clever. The juries of men which try women murderers are ready to grow maudlin over them if the women happen to be good-looking.

It is a problem, Sir, which I can not solve, turn and twist it as I may. Sometimes I think that we who are deformed in body are granted the only straight minds to be found among men, by way of compensation. And at such times, Sir, I am inclined to thank God that He has seen fit to put the hump upon the back and not upon the mind or soul of

HAROLD HISHOULDER.

FROM A HOTEL SPONGE

DEAR SIR: I feel it my duty to publicly express my disapproval of the recent ruling of certain hotel proprietors of this city, and to publicly protest against their hasty and ill-advised agreement that hereafter they will discourage, in every way possible, the visits of outsiders who make use of their lobbies and halls.

If it were not for me and for the other members of my class, how long do you suppose these hotels could go on charging the enormous prices they now charge for food and lodging? How long do you suppose they could induce the thrifty countryman to part with such sums of his hard-earned money if he were not provided with the inspiring spectacle which I present when arrayed in my full regalia? Not one month, Sir. In less than a fortnight the word would go forth to all parts of the United States that these hotels had lost caste and were becoming back numbers.

"When I saw how things were going, bankruptcy staring me in the face, ruin yawning at my feet, I was suddenly seized with an irresistible desire to go on to Paris, I had a French fever of the most violent character. I declared myself sick of the soot and smoke uproar of the great Babel,--I even spoke slightingly of Cox's Hotel, as if I had been used to better things,--and I called for my bill. Heavens and earth, how I trembled! Did ever a condemned wretch feel as faint at the sight of the priest coming to bid him prepare for the gallows, as I did at the sight of one of those sublime functionaries bringing me my doom on a silver salver? Every pore opened; a clammy perspiration broke out all over me; I reached forth a shaking hand, and thanked his highness with a ghastly smile.

"A few figures told my fate. The convict who hears his death-sentence may still hope for a reprieve; but figures are inexorable, figures cannot lie. My bill at Cox's was in pounds, shillings, and pence, amounting to just eleven dollars a day. Eleven times nine are ninety-nine. It was so near a round hundred, it seemed a bitter mockery not to say a hundred, and have done with it, instead of scrupulously stopping to consider a single paltry dollar. I was reminded of the boy whose father bragged of killing nine hundred and ninety-nine pigeons at one shot. Somebody asked why he didn't say a thousand. 'Thunder!' says the boy, 'do you suppose my father would lie just for one pigeon?' I told the story, to show my cousins how coolly I received the bill, and paid it,--coined my heart and dropped my blood for drachmas, rather than appear mean in presence of my relatives, although I knew that a portion of the charge was for the bridal arrangements for which the bridegroom alone was responsible.

"This drained my purse so nearly dry that I had only just money enough left to take me to Paris, and pay for a week's lodging or so in advance. They urged me to remain and go to Scotland with them; but I tore myself away, and fled to France. I would not permit them to accompany me to the railroad station, and see me off; for I was unwilling that they should know I was going to economize my finances by purchasing a second-class ticket. From the life I had been leading at Cox's to a second-class passage to Paris was that step from the sublime to the ridiculous which I did not wish to be seen taking. I think I'd have thrown myself into the Thames before I would thus have exposed myself; for, as I tell you, I had not yet been honored with a seat in Madame Waldoborough's carriage.

"It is certainly a grand thing to keep grand company; but if ever I felt a sense of relief, it was when I found myself free from my cousins, emancipated from the fearful bondage of keeping up such expensive appearances; when I found myself seated on the hard, cushionless bench of the second-class car, and nibbled my crackers at my leisure, unoppressed by the awful presence of those grandees in white waistcoats, and by the more awful presence of a condemning conscience within myself.

"I nibbled my crackers, and they tasted sweeter than Cox's best dinners; I nibbled, and contemplated my late experiences; nibbled, and was almost persuaded to be a Christian,--that is, to forswear thenceforth and forever all company which I could not afford to keep, all appearances which were not honest, all foolish pride, and silly ambition, and moral cowardice;--as I did after I had ridden in a certain carriage I have mentioned, and which I am coming to now as fast as possible.

"I had lost nearly all my money and a good share of my self-respect by the course I had taken, and I could think of only one substantial advantage which I had gained. That was a note of introduction from my lovely cousin to Madame Waldoborough. That would be of inestimable value to me in Paris. It would give me access to the best society, and secure to me, a stranger many privileges which could not otherwise be obtained. 'Perhaps, after all,' thought I, as I read over the flattering contents of the unsealed note,--'perhaps, after all, I shall find this worth quite as much as it has cost me.' O, had I foreseen that it was actually destined to procure me an invitation to ride out with Madam Waldoborough herself, shouldn't I have been elated?

"I reached Paris, took a cheap lodging, and waited for the arrival of my uncle's goods destined for the Great Exhibition,--for to look after them, and to assist in having them properly placed, was the main business that had brought me here. I also waited anxiously for my uncle and a fresh supply of funds. In the mean time I delivered my letters of introduction, and made a few acquaintances. Twice I called at Madam Waldoborough's hotel, but did not see her; she was out. So at least the servants said, but I suspect they lied; for, the second time I was told so, I noticed, O, the most splendid turn-out!--the same you just saw pass--waiting in the carriage-way before her door, with the driver on the box, and the footman holding open the silver-handled and escutchioned panel that served as a door to the barouche, as if expecting some grand personage to get in.

"'Some distinguished visitor, perhaps,' thought I; 'or, it may be, Madam Waldoborough herself; instead of being out, she is just going out, and in five minutes the servant's lie will be a truth.' Sure enough, before I left the street--for I may as well confess that curiosity caused me to linger a little--my lady herself appeared in all her glory, and bounced into the barouche with a vigor that made it rock quite unromantically; for she is not frail, she is not a butterfly, as you perceived. I recognized her from a description I had received from my cousin the bride. She was accompanied by that meagre, smart little sprite of a French girl, whom Madam always takes with her,--to talk French with, and to be waited upon by her, she says; but rather, I believe, by way of a contrast to set off her own brilliant complexion and imperial proportions. It is Juno and Arachne. The divine orbs of the goddess turned haughtily upon me, but did not see me,--looked through and beyond me, as if I had been nothing but gossamer, feathers, air; and the little black, bead-like eyes of the insect pierced me maliciously an instant, as the barouche dashed past, and disappeared in the Rue de Rivoli. I was humiliated; I felt that I was recognized,--known as the rash youth who had just called at the H?tel de Waldoborough, been told that Madam was out, and had stopped outside to catch the hotel in a lie. It is very singular--how do you explain it?--that it should have seemed to me the circumstance was something, not for Madam, but for me to be ashamed of! I don't believe that the color of her peachy cheeks was heightened the shadow of a shade; but as for me, I blushed to the tips of my ears.

"You may believe that I did not go away in such a cheerful frame of mind as might have encouraged me to repeat my call in a hurry. I just coldly enclosed to her my cousin's letter of introduction, along with my address; and said to myself, 'Now, she'll know what a deuse of a fellow she has slighted: she'll know she has put an affront upon a connection of the Todworths!' I was very silly, you see, for I had not yet--but I am coming to that part of my story.

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