parties well, and during that long bitter period of thirteen years it was commonly asked concerning the woman: 'Hasn't that hag trapped anybody yet? She'll have to take back old Jabe when he gets out.' And she did. For nearly thirteen weary years she struggled nobly against fate: she went after every unmarried man in her part of the country; but 'No,' said they, 'we cannot-indeed we cannot-marry you, after the way you went back on Jabe. It is likely that under the same circumstances you would play us the same scurvy trick. G'way, woman!' And so the poor old heartbroken creature had to go to the Governor and get the old man pardoned out. Bless her for her steadfast fidelity! Margaret the Childless.
This, therefore, is the story of her:—Some four years ago her husband brought home a baby, which he said he found lying in the street, and which they concluded to adopt. About a year after this he brought home another, and the good woman thought she could stand that one too. A similar period passed away, when one evening he opened the door and fell headlong into the room, swearing with studied correctness at a dog which had tripped him up, but which upon inspection turned out to be another baby. Margaret's sus- picion was aroused, but to allay his she hastened to implore him to adopt that darling also, to which, after some slight hesitation, he consented. Another twelvemonth rolled into eternity, when one evening the lady heard a noise in the back yard, and going out she saw her husband labouring at the windlass of the well with unwonted industry. As the bucket neared the top he reached down and extracted another infant, exactly like the former ones, and holding it up, explained to the astonished matron: 'Look at this, now; did you ever see such a sweet young one go a-campaignin' about the country without a lantern and a-tumblin' into wells? There, take the poor little thing in to the fire, and get off its wet clothes.' It suddenly flashed across his mind that he had neglected an obvious precaution-the clothes were not wet-and he hastily added: 'There's no tellin' what would have become of it, a-climbin' down that rope, if I hadn't seen it afore it got down to the water.'
Silently the good wife took that infant into the house and disrobed it; sorrowfully she laid it alongside its little brothers and sister; long and bitterly she wept over the quartette; and then with one tender look at her lord and master, smoking in solemn silence by the fire, and resembling them with all his might, she gathered her shawl about her bowed shoulders and went away into the night. The Discomfited Demon.
I never clearly knew why I visited the old cemetery that night. Perhaps it was to see how the work of removing the bodies was getting on, for they were all being taken up and carted away to a more comfortable place where land was less valuable. It was well enough; nobody had buried himself there for years, and the skeletons that were now exposed were old mouldy affairs for which it was difficult to feel any respect. However, I put a few bones in my pocket as souvenirs. The night was one of those black, gusty ones in March, with great inky clouds driving rapidly across the sky, spilling down sudden showers of rain which as suddenly would cease. I could barely see my way between the empty graves, and in blundering about among the coffins I tripped and fell headlong. A peculiar laugh at my side caused me to turn my head, and I saw a singular old gentleman whom I had often noticed hanging about the Coroner's office, sitting cross-legged upon a prostrate tombstone.
'How are you, sir?' said I, rising awkwardly to my feet; 'nice night.'
'Get off my tail,' answered the elderly party, without moving a muscle.
'My eccentric friend,' rejoined I, mockingly, 'may I be permitted to inquire your street and number?'
'Certainly,' he replied, 'No. 1, Marle Place, Asphalt Avenue, Hades.'
'The devil!' sneered I.
'Exactly,' said he; 'oblige me by getting off my tail.'
I was a little staggered, and by way of rallying my somewhat dazed faculties, offered a cigar: 'Smoke?'
'Thank you,' said the singular old gentleman, putting it under his coat; 'after dinner. Drink?'
I was not exactly prepared for this, but did not know if it would be safe to decline, and so putting the proffered flask to my lips pretended to swig elaborately, keeping my mouth tightly closed the while. 'Good article,' said I, returning it. He simply remarked, 'You're a fool,' and emptied the bottle at a gulp.
'And now,' resumed he, 'you will confer a favour I shall highly appreciate by removing your feet from my tail.'
There was a slight shock of earthquake, and all the skeletons in sight arose to their feet, stretched themselves and yawned audibly. Without moving from his seat, the old gentleman rapped the nearest one across the skull with his gold-headed cane, and they all curled away to sleep again.
'Sire,' I resumed, 'indulge me in the impertinence of inquiring your business here at this hour.'
'My business is none of yours,' retorted he, calmly; 'what are you up to yourself?'
'I have been picking up some bones,' I replied, carelessly.
'Then you are—'
I am—'
'A Ghoul!'
'My good friend, you do me injustice. You have doubtless read very frequently in the newspapers of the Fiend in Human Shape whose actions and way of life are so generally denounced. Sire, you see before you that maligned party!'
There was a quick jerk under the soles of my feet, which pitched me prone upon the ground. Scrambling up, I saw the old gentleman vanishing behind an adjacent sandhill as if the devil were after him. The Mistake of a Life.
The hotel was in flames. Mr. Pokeweed was promptly on hand, and tore madly into the burning pile, whence he soon emerged with a nude female. Depositing her tenderly upon a pile of hot bricks, he mopped his steaming front with his warm coat-tail.
'Now, Mrs. Pokeweed,' said he, 'where will I be most likely to find the children? They will naturally wish to get out.'
The lady assumed a stiffly vertical attitude, and with freezing dignity replied in the words following:
'Sir, you have saved my life; I presume you are entitled to my thanks. If you are likewise solicitous regarding the fate of the person you have mentioned, you had better go back and prospect round till you find her; she would probably be delighted to see you. But while I have a character to maintain unsullied, you shall not stand there and call me Mrs. Pokeweed!'
Just then the front wall toppled outward, and Pokeweed cleared the street at a single bound. He never learned what became of the strange lady, and to the day of his death he professed an indifference that was simply brutal. L. S.
Early one evening in the autumn of '64, a pale girl stood singing Methodist hymns at the summit of Bush Street hill. She was attired, Spanish fashion, in a loose overcoat and slippers. Suddenly she broke off her song, a dark-browed young soldier from the Presidio cautiously approached, and seizing her fondly in his arms, snatched away the overcoat, retreating with it to an auction-house on Pacific Street, where it may still be seen by the benighted traveller, just a-going for two-and-half-and never gone!
The poor maiden after this misfortune felt a bitter resentment swelling in her heart, and scorning to remain among her kind in that costume, took her way to the Cliff House, where she arrived, worn and weary, about breakfast-time.
The landlord received her kindly, and offered her a pair of his best trousers; but she was of noble blood, and having been reared in luxury, respectfully declined to receive charity from a low-born stranger. All efforts to induce her to eat were equally unavailing. She would stand for hours on the rocks where the road descends to the beach, and gaze at the playful seals in the surf below, who seemed rather flattered by her attention, and would swim about, singing their sweetest songs to her alone. Passers-by were equally curious as to her, but a broken lyre gives forth no music, and her heart responded not with any more long metre hymns.
After a few weeks of this solitary life she was suddenly missed. At the same time a strange seal was noted among the rest. She was remarkable for being always clad in an overcoat, which she had doubtless fished up from the wreck of the French galleon Brignardello, which went ashore there some years afterward.
One tempestuous night, an old hag who had long done business as a hermitess on Helmet Rock came into the bar-room at the Cliff House, and there, amidst the crushing thunders and lightnings spilling all over the horizon, she related that she had seen a young seal in a comfortable overcoat, sitting pensively upon the pinnacle of Seal Rock, and had distinctly heard the familiar words of a Methodist hymn. Upon inquiry the tale was discovered to be founded upon fact. The identity of this seal could no longer be denied without downright blasphemy, and in all the old chronicles of that period not a doubt is even implied.
One day a handsome, dark, young lieutenant of infantry, Don Edmundo by name, came out to the Cliff House
