plexion of a plaster cast. Their minds travelling in the same direction, and at an equal rate, arrived together at the same reflection; but the Farmer was the first to give it utterance :

"Thee'd be miss'd, Dame, if thee were to die!"

The Dame started. Although she had nothing but Death at that moment before her eyes, she was far from dreaming of her own exit, and at this rebound of her thoughts against herself, she felt as if an extra cold coffin-plate had been suddenly nailed on her chest; recovering, however, from the first shock, her thoughts flowed into their old channel, and she retorted in the same spirit :-"I wish, Master, thee may live so long as I!"'

The Farmer, in his own mind, wished to live rather longer; for, at the utmost, he considered that his wife's bill of mortality had but two months to run. The calculation made him sorrowful; during the last few months she had consulted his appetite, bent to his humour, and dove-tailed her own inclinations into his, in a manner that could never be supplied; and he thought of her, if not in the language, at least in the spirit of the Lady in Lalla Rookh--

His wife, from being at first useful to him, had become agreeable, and at last dear; and as he contemplated her approaching fate, he could not help thinking out audibly, "that he should be a lonesome man when she was gone." The Dame, this time, heard the survivorship foreboded without starting; but she marvelled much at what she thought the infatuation of a doom'd man. So perfect was her faith in the infallibility of St. Mark, that she had even seen the symptoms of mortal disease, as palpable as plague spots, on the devoted Yeoman. Giving his body up, therefore, for lost, a strong sense of duty persuaded her, that it was imperative on her, as a Christian, to warn the unsuspecting Farmer of his dissolution. Accordingly, with a solemnity adapted to the subject, a tenderness of recent growth, and a Memento Mori face, she broached the matter in the following question"Master, how bee'st?"

"As hearty, Dame, as a buck,"-the Dame shook her head," and I wish thee the like,"—at which he shook his head himself.

A dead silence ensued:-the Farmer was as unprepared as ever.There is a great fancy for breaking the truth by dropping it gently,an experiment which has never answered any more than with Ironstone China. The Dame felt this, and thinking it better to throw the news at her husband at once, she told him in as many words, that he was a dead man.

It was now the Yeoman's turn to be staggered. By a parallel course of reasoning, he had just wrought himself up to a similar disclosure, and the Dame's death-warrant was just ready upon his tongue, when he met with his own despatch, signed, sealed, and delivered.

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Conscience instantly pointed out the oracle from which she had derived the omen, and he turned as pale as the pale of society"-the colourless complexion of late hours.

St. Martin had numbered his years; and the remainder days seemed discounted by St. Thomas. Like a criminal cast to die, he doubted if the die was cast, and appealed to his wife :

:

"Thee hast watch'd, Dame, at the church porch, then?" Ay, Master."

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"And thee didst see me spirituously?"

"In the brown wrap, with the boot hose. Thee were coming to the church, by Fairthorn Gap; in the while I were coming by the Holly Hedge."-For a minute the Farmer paused-but the next, he burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter;-peal after peal-and each higher than the last, according to the hysterical gamut of the hyæna. The poor woman had but one explanation for this phenomenon-she thought it a delirium-a lightening before death, and was beginning to wring her hands, and lament, when 'she was checked by the merry Yeoman :

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Dame, thee bee'st a fool. It was I myself thee seed at the Church porch. I seed thee too,-with a notice to quit upon thy face-but, thanks to God, thee beest a-living, and that is more than I cared to say of thee this day ten-month!"

The Dame made no answer. Her heart was too full to speak, but throwing her arms round her husband, she showed that she shared in his sentiment. And from that hour, by practising a careful abstinence from offence, or a temperate sufferance of its appearance, they became the most united couple in the county,-but it must be said, that their comfort was not complete till they had seen each other, in safety, over the perilous anniversary of St. Mark's Eve.

Is a sort of stranded marine animal, that the receding tide of life has left high and dry on the shore. He pines for his element like a Sea Bear, and misses his briny washings and wettings. What the ocean could not do, the land does, for it makes him sick: he cannot digest properly unless his body is rolled and tumbled about like a barrel-churn. Terra firma is good enough he thinks to touch at for wood and water, but nothing more. There is no wind he swears ashore-every day of his life is a dead calm,-a thing above all others

he detests he would like it better for an occasional earthquake. Walk he cannot, the ground being so still and steady that he is puzzled to keep his legs; and ride he will not, for he disdains a craft whose rudder is forward and not astern.

Inland scenery is his especial aversion. He despises a tree "before the mast," and would give all the singing birds of Creation for a Boatswain's whistle. He hates prospects, but enjoys retrospects. An old boat, a stray anchor, or decayed mooring ring, will set him dreaming for hours. He splices sea and land ideas together. He reads of "shooting off a tie at Battersea," and it reminds him of a ball carrying away his own pigtail. "Canvassing for a situation," recalls running with all sails set for a station at Aboukir. He has the advantage of our Economists as to the "Standard of Value," knowing it to be the British ensign. The announcement of "an arrival of foreign vessels, with our ports open," claps him into a Paradise of prize money, with Poll of the Pint. He wonders sometimes at "petitions to be discharged from the Fleet," but sympathises with those in the Marshalsea Court, as subject to a Sea Court Martial. Finally, try him even in the learned languages, by asking him for the meaning of "Georgius Rex," and he will answer, without hesitation, "The wrecks of the Royal George."