follows that the Duppies of those who spent most of her life on her knees

die suddenly, either by accident or vio- with a pail of uninviting dark "stain " lence, and are, so to speak, let loose on her left hand, and the half husk of on the world at large, accounts for the a cocoanut in the other. It was a life roadsides, the woods, and the "pin- that appeared to offer singularly little guin" hedges being infested by them. scope to the imagination, but as it kept A large, sandy gully near us, which her and Josiah in comparative comfort in the rains was subject to rapid floods, she acquiesced in it gladly. She told had a particularly unenviable reputa-me, squatting on the floor and emphation. The highroad crossed it, and sizing her remarks occasionally by a many people in course of years had languid rub. I think I have mentioned been drowned in trying to ford it at before that any vigorous movement is such times. Of course, therefore, their unfashionable here. Duppies haunted its banks ever afterwards. Hospitals are for the same reason filled with Duppies, for naturally, although many deaths must occur, none of the subsequent ceremonies can be gone through. Every West Indian hospital nurse must be, I am certain, a walking dictionary of Duppy stories. Many of them nowadays are, however, English ladies, and before the devotion of such brave, good women Duppies themselves will have to flee as time goes on.

"Yes, missus, for true my Josiah can see Duppies. He see one de oder day. No, he no being frightened, but he see it plain. A big Duppy just the same as a woman, an' wid her head tied sitting by our kitchen an' blowing fire fram de coals. No he did not go near 'nuff to touch it, 'cos he rader 'fraid, but he see her 'stinctly." Then she added, with some pride, "Yes, missus, Josiah always will see Duppies, 'cos he born wid a caul on, an' dose little infants always do. I keep I was given a most circumstantial de caul, missus, berry careful, an' account of the apparition of two French ofturtimes I get threepence for a lilly gentlemen who had died of fever in bit, for people know 'bout Josiah an' the hospital at Colon. These "Dup-dat I hab it, an' so come an' buy lilly pies" did no harm, but were distinctly bits as a charm against Duppies. Isn't seen in every ward by the patients it strange, missus, dat to a chile born one evening. There was no possible means of exit or ingress save the usual ones, so that unless supernatural means were employed the fact remained inexplicable. The woman who told me of this had been the matron of the hospital, and was to some extent an educated and superior person, but she was West Indian born and bred, and therefore quite ready to explain it by the Duppy theory. A fire attracts Duppies almost as much as scent.

wid a caul it makes see Duppies, an’ for de oders it keep dem 'way? Some people see dem widout, but den dey say dey born wid de caul inside dem but I no 'stand dat. Pears strange — "

Poor old ragged Sue! the chance that the little Josiah had been born with a caul was her chief title to honor, and the stray threepenny bits that the sale thereof had brought had often helped her over hard times.

A little boy I knew, called Josiah, Lovers of scenery have to thank our was supposed to have the gift of see- friends the Duppies for the preservaing Duppies. He was a nice, happy-tion of all the splendid old "ceiba" or looking child, as black and as shining silk cotton-trees that are still to be met as ebony, and his supernatural endowment appeared neither to affect his spirits nor his appetite for candies." His mother, a dilapidated brown woman with a touch of Carib Indian blood in her veins, told me all about it. She was by profession a floor-cleaner, and

with, for were it not for this belief they would long ago have met the fate of the other beautiful timbers of the island. As it is, being supposed to be the chosen haunt of the Duppies, they are allowed to remain, for no negro dare attempt to cut them down, and

when it is necessary that this be done | blue stuff tied to them, is a safeguard. a vast amount of rum has to be ex- This last fancy is clearly a relic of the pended by the white owner, to be used old Spanish days, for blue is the Virboth in appeasing the avenging spirit gin's color, and to dress a child in blue of the doomed tree and in making the was a sign of placing it under her prowood-cutters very drunk, in which case tection. they are not deemed apparently so responsible for their sacrilege.

As in all real ghost stories, the apparent aimlessness of all the tales I heard is striking, for although I have heard dozens first hand, they all led to nothing, and one was a type of them

I have heard that the negroes even object to use the fallen branches as fuel for fear of the Duppies, or "Jimbi," that still cling to them. Strictly speak-all. ing, however, I imagine that these For instance, a negro told me he had cotton-tree spirits, although now con- seen a Duppy the night before. It founded with Duppies, belong to the was in the shape of a little negro girl, order of ancient tree-deities, and that and he at first thought it was the small the "Jimbi," or "Jumbo" worship is sister of one of the maids who often quite a different thing. It is evidently came to the house. He was not in the one of the old imported African beliefs, least frightened, therefore, although and one that, since it has saved so he saw she was following him. Sudmany noble trees, we may be grateful for.

denly she vanished before his eyes, and then he shook with fear, for he knew it had been a little "Duppy girl."

Babies that die before baptism turn into Duppies; in fact, they seem to become a kind of mischievous house- Duppies are by way of sometimes sprite much like the Brownie of north- coming into stables and, taking the ern nations. When thus transformed horses out, ride them all night. They they most ungratefully plague their always bring them back carefully at mother, inflicting on her in particular dawn, but the horses are worn out and a perfect shower of petty annoyances. unfit for work the next day. This is a Thus they will upset and hide things, very convenient manner to account for and most especially delight in throwing a horse's jaded aspect at times, for sand and gravel on the roof, but except negroes love riding, and will often for this and causing strange noises and" borrow" a horse, unknown to its raps, they are incapable of serious master, for the pleasure of riding it at harm. Babies should therefore be night. christened as soon as possible, for, I had one rather amusing Duppy exapart from this danger, there are perience myself. A very nice brown wicked old women called " Ha-iegs "housemaid told me that she had seen a (Anglice "Hags"?) who take advan- Duppy of a novel kind when staying in tage of their helpless condition to suck the hills. It was at midday, but the their soul away, or even to steal weather was grey and cloudy. She the children bodily. These "Ha-iegs" are, however, only to be found in remote country places, and rarely come near towns. Perhaps there is some legend of the terrible "Mamalois," those ghastly priestesses of cannabalism of Haiti, in the story, for in that island at least, the tale would have a tangible foundation.

was out of doors when it happened, and this Duppy, although dressed like an ordinary black woman, with a handkerchief tied round her head, was walking along the path in front of her with a lighted candle on her head, and a "dagger" in each hand.

She told me of it several times, but her story was always the same. She As is believed generally in Europe, said she felt too frightened to go up unchristened children, therefore, should close to the woman, although she saw not be left alone, although blue cloth her clearly, and then the " "Duppy " wrapped round them, or a piece of vanished in the orthodox way.

I was on a visit at the time, and I is assent, and then you will be bound had had a touch of fever, which, I sup- to go when "deir Duppy call you." pose, made me inclined to be nervous. I was lying in consequence half awake in bed about nine o'clock at night, when suddenly and noiselessly I saw, apparently suspended in the air, a lighted candle. The room was very dark, for the moon had not yet risen, and as my eyes became accustomed to the light I saw a shining black face appear below the candle.

praperly done, missus, an' a month and torment and terrify the sentries so afterwards poor Rosie hab a nice baby much that to place them on that particboy. She berry well and just lying wid ular spot has had perforce to be abande baby a few days afterwards, an' her doned, although naturally the fact and sisters in de room wid her, for dey its reason is not announced to the pubberry kind and sorry for her. When lic. Truly, in these islands Duppies all de sudden she rise up in her bed are a power.

an' look an' look, an' her hair stand right out, an' she 'gin to cry an' bawl 'Oh moder, moder-go 'way, moder; take your handkerchief' — for she had a nice silk handkerchief dat belonged to her moder on her head, an' she try an' unfasten de handkerchief. She try an' frow it in de air, an' she beating de air all de time wid her hands an' crying out piercing, an' den de lights an' de candles all burn blue. Oh, missus, her sisters tell me it was fearful to see her, for dey see nobody but deir sister screaming mad wid terror an' calling for her moder to leave her, for she no fit to die; but den she struggle less an' less, an' in a minute or two she die wid a shriek of 'moder,' an' den de sisters remember how deir moder had pramised to fetch her.”

Margaret stopped. She was quite shaking with terror at her own tale, and her face under the warm brown skin looked grey.

From Belgravia.

MONTAIGNE'S ADOPTED DAUGHTER.

THOSE writers who, thanks to a long life, serve as links between two distinct periods of literature, always offer an interesting study, however small the part which they themselves played in either period. The greater the contrast between any two such periods, the more interesting the life of the connecting link. No two ages of French literature could be apparently more sharply divided than the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or, to speak more accurately, the Renaissance and the classical period. Mlle. de Gournay, who, were it not for her title of the adopted daughter of Montaigne, would now be completely forgotten, living, as she did, from 1565 to 1645, was a contemporary of such dissimilar writers as, on the one hand, Montaigne and Amyot, the two chief prose writers of the sixteenth century, Ronsard and Jodelle, the two most famous members of the Pléiade, and, on the other hand, of Malherbe, Balzac, Voiture, Chapelain,

"Oh, missus !" she said faintly, "if such a ting shuld happen as a Duppy come for me I should die ob fear," and such fears no doubt do cause inexplicable deaths and help to fill the lunatic asylums year after year. I heard of one patient who imagines she has swal-Scarron and the rest of the writers who lowed several Duppies, and maintains that they disagree dreadfully with each other and herself in consequence in their present circumscribed quarters.

One more characteristic fact and I have finished.

paved the way for Boileau, who was nine years old at her death.

But Marie Le Jars de Gournay, to give her her full name, deserves to be studied, not only owing to the length of her life, but also because she is one of I was told, and on good authority, the most grotesque figures in the histhat the south-west entrance of the tory of French literature. Her father, "Camp" in one of the principal West Guillaume Le Jars, Seigneur de GourIndian garrison towns has practically to nay, a person of honor and underbe left without a sentry, for no negro standing," to use his daughter's words, has yet been found to face the Duppies died just as he was well on the way to that infest this particular spot. Long, restore the fallen fortunes of his house long ago, in the days when yellow by his successes at court, where he was fever reigned supreme, some English treasurer of the king's household. His officers were buried there, and ever widow and children took up their abode since their death their Duppies rise up at the castle of Gournay, in Picardy,

where Marie, though a mere child, de- | the first to appreciate the " Essays," voted herself to study with such energy which were at this time comparatively that, in spite of the "aversion" of her unknown. mother, who was doubtless troubled to From this date she "began to desire see the hours which should have been the acquaintance of the author more devoted to the acquisition of household than anything else in the world." Her accomplishments, spent in the reading wish was granted five years later, of books without any help whatever, when, she and her mother being at and, which is less extraordinary, with- Paris, where Montaigne was also presout a grammar, she managed to learn ent engaged in reprinting the "EsLatin by the tedious process of care- says," she managed to let him know of fully comparing certain translations her admiration, with the result that, with their originals. It is perhaps ad- the very next day, the philosopher of visable to make one's first acquaintance Bordeaux presented himself, "offering with a language unhampered by the her the affection of a father for his cut and dried rules of grammar, still it daughter." During the nine months is not the less extraordinary that a they remained in Paris, they met conchild should have had the inclination stantly, and, on their return to Gourfor, and, what is more, the determina- nay, the great man accompanied tion to continue, a course of study them. When he left them to return to which must chiefly have consisted of Bordeaux, she hastily sent after him a guess-work. Her method was scarcely manuscript, entitled "Le Proumenoir the same as the Hamiltonian system, de M. de Montaigne," because, she for, although grammar is of secondary writes in the preface (which is dated, importance in that, an interlinear word Gournay, November 26th, 1588), "as for word translation is considered indispensable, while Marie de Gournay had probably, judging from most of the translations of the period, to content herself with what was a very free paraphrase rather than a literal rendering. She started on Greek with the same method, but it is not surprising that she gave it up in despair. Her thirst a "Bouquet Poétique," chiefly consistfor knowledge was unquenchable. She ing of epigrams (of a sort to be exstudied, equally unassisted, history, pected from a young lady just over ethics, grammar, geometry, and at this twenty) and similar trifles in verse. early age acquired a taste for chem- The book, when published five years istry, or rather alchemy, which, in later | later, had a certain amount of success, years, led her to waste what little and is interesting as being her first money she had in a search for what work. In after years it was reprinted has evaded the grasp of many a more "at the request of certain ladies of the learned person, the Philosopher's highest rank," amongst whom one would like to number, although there She was in the heart of her studies is no authority for it, "the incomwhen, in 1583, an event happened parable Arthenice," Madame de Ramwhich shaped her life for her. By bouillet, the patroness and friend of some means or other she became pos- most of the literary men and women sessed of a copy of Montaigne's "Es- of the day. says," which she devoured eagerly, so Montaigne, even after so short an eagerly that, as she confesses herself, acquaintance, had formed a very high "people almost thought from her opinion of his "adopted daughter," a transports that she was mad." It title which he had bestowed on her, should be added that this girl of eigh- and of which she used to say she was teen, entirely self-educated, was one of more proud than she would have been

Stone.

we were walking together only three days ago, I repeated to you the story which follows." The story in question is a Persian tale, somewhat longwinded and with a very complicated plot, as was the fashion in those days. It was accompanied by a translation of the second book of the " Æneid," and