the reply. "You 're an old wretch as I wouldn't touch with a pair of tongs!"

"Hey-day!" cried Joe. "This is not precisely the character you expected. The rump and dozen”

But the subject is too painful to be pursued. My misfortunes were, however, not yet at an end. I started that evening by the mail. We had not got twenty miles from town when the snow-storm began. I was one of its victims. The mail stuck somewhere in Yorkshire, where we were snowed up and half starved for four days, and succeeded only after a thousand perils, the details of which may be read most pathetically related in the newspapers of the period, in reaching our destination. When there, I lost little time in repairing to our agent, -a W.S. of the name of M'Cracken,-who has a handsome flat in Nicholson-street, not far from the College. He welcomed me cordially; but there was something dolorous in his tone, nevertheless.

"Sit ye down, Master Gayless; sit ye down, and tak' a glass o' wine; it wull do ye guid after yer lang and cauld journey. I hae been looking for ye for some days."

"What about the house of Screw and Longcut?" I inquired, with much anxiety.

"I am vera sorry to say, naething guid.” “Failed?”

"Why, jest that; they cam' down three days ago. They struggled an' struggled, but it wad no do." "What is the state of their affairs?"

"Oh! bad-bad-saxpence in the pund forby. But, why were you no here by the cotch o' whilk ye advised me. That cotch cam' in safe eneuch; and it puzzled me quite to see yer name bookit in the waybill, an' ye no come. I did no ken what to do. I suppose some accident detained you?"

"It was indeed an accident," replied I faintly, laying down my untasted glass.

"I hope it's of nae consequence elsewhere,” said Mr. M'Cracken, "because it is unco unlucky here; for if ye had been in E'nbro' on the Saturday, I thinkindeed I am sure that we wad hae squeezed ten or twelve shillings in the pund out o' them, for they were in hopes o' remittances to keep up; but, when the Monday cam' they saw the game was gane, and they are now clane dished. So you see, Mr. Gayless, ye're after the fair."

"After the fair, indeed," said I; for men can pun even in misery.

What my man of business told me, proved to be true.

The dividend will not be sixpence in the pound, and it is more than six hundred and fifty pounds odd out of my pocket. I had the expense (including that of a lost place) of a journey to Edinburgh and back for nothing. I was snowed up on the road, and frozen up on the top of a staircase. I lost a pair of teeth, and paid the dentist for another. I was bumped and bruised, bullied by a barmaid, and hunted by a dog. I paid my rump and dozen amid the never-ending jokes of those who were eating and drinking them; and I cannot look forward to the next dog-days without having before my eyes the horrors of hydrophobia.

Such was my last love!

A NIGHT OF TERROR.

[This story is partly translated, partly imitated, from the French. The French author, I suppose, was indebted to some German original. It is no great matter, so the reader likes it. Let us therefore, without further preface, begin.]

I.

You will recollect that, three years ago, we had a dreadful winter throughout Europe. It was severe in those quarters where the climate is usually genial: in the north it was absolutely dreadful. My sister and I were on a visit to our old friend, the Princess Nat her Lithuanian castle. The thing was arranged that Adelaide was to be married to the Princess's son, Sobieski, who was daily expected from Spain. I suppose my sister looked forward to the arrival with more impatience than the rest of the party; and certainly its male portion were far more interested in hunting the wolf all the morning through the snows, and drinking down the fatigues of the chase in the evening over the fire, than in anything connected with the tender passion.

The wished-for morning arrived at last. Sobieski appeared in the castle of his ancestors amid the accla

mations of an admiring peasantry, to be kissed by his mother, shaken hands with by his friends, and looked at, I suppose, by his betrothed. Foreign travel had improved him, and a single year had sufficed to turn the handsome stripling into a fine and noble-looking young man. The Princess was happy, Adelaide was happy, Sobieski was happy, we all were happy: but the happiness was destined to be of short duration; for we had hardly risen from breakfast when a wearied courier arrived, bringing in the melancholy information that my father had been suddenly taken ill in Bohemia, and that our attendance was instantly required, as his life was despaired of. It was of course necessary that we should start on the instant; no time could be lost, and our arrangements for departure were made with the utmost rapidity. Sobieski wished to have gone with us; but how could he leave his mother whom he had only seen for two or three hours after a year's absence? Besides, why expose him to the trouble and inconvenience of the journey? If, as we hoped, we found the alarm exaggerated, it would be easy to send for him, or to return: if the event were what our fears suggested, it was arranged that my sister's future home was to be that of the Princess. Adelaide and Sobieski had a long private interview before we parted. What they said I do not know; but it