would quaver longer, but Revenge shakes his matted locks, blows a fresh alarum on his pandeans, and thumps with double heat his double-drum. Dejected Pity at his side, a hungerbitten urchin, applies to his silver-toned triangle; whilst Jealousy, sad proof of his distracted state, grinds on, in all sorts of time, at his barrel-organ. With eyes upraised, pale Melancholy sings, retired and unheeded, at the corner of the street; and Mirth, yonder he is, a brisk little Savoyard, jerking away at the hurdy-gurdy, and dancing himself at the same time, to render his jig-tune more jigging.

AN AFFAIR OF HONOR.

HONOR CALLS HIM TO THE FIELD.”

"AND those were the only duels," concluded the Major, "that ever I fought in my life."

Now the Major reminded me strongly of an old boatman at Hastings, who after a story of a swimmer that was snapped asunder by a "sea attorney" in the West Indies, made an end in the same fashion: "And that was the only time," said he, “I ever saw a man bit in two by a shark.”

A single occurrence of the kind seemed sufficient for the

experience of one life; and so I reasoned upon the Major's nine duels. He must, in the first place, have been not only jealous and swift to quarrel; but, in the second, have met with nine intemperate spirits equally forward with himself. It is but in one affront out of ten that the duellist meets with a duellist, a computation assigning ninety mortal disagreements to his single share; whereas I, with equal irritability and as much courage perhaps, had never exchanged a card in my life. The subject occupied me all the walk homeward through the meadows: "To get involved in nine duels," said I: "'tis quite improbable!"

As I thought thus, I had thrust my body half-way under a rough bar that was doing duty for a stile at one end of a field. It was just too high to climb comfortably, and just low enough to be inconvenient to duck under; but I chose the latter mode, and began to creep through with the deliberateness consistent with doubtful and intricate speculation. "To get involved in nine duels · here my back hitched a little at the bar't is quite impossible."

I am persuaded that there is a spirit of mischief afoot in the world, some malignant fiend to seize upon and direct these accidents: for just at this nick, whilst I was boggling below the bar, there came up another passenger by the same path: so, seeing how matters stood, he made an attempt at once to throw his leg over the impediment; but mistaking the altitude by a few inches, he kicked me where I had never been kicked before.

66

By heaven! this is too bad," said I, staggering through headforemost from the concussion: my back was up, in every sense, in a second.

but with

The stranger apologized in the politest terms, such an intolerable chuckle, with such a provoking grin lurking about his face, that I felt fury enough, like Beatrice, to eat his heart in the market-place." In short, in two little minutes from venting my conviction upon duelling, I found myself engaged to a meeting for the vindication of my honor.

There is a vivid description in the history of Robinson Crusoe of the horror of the solitary mariner at finding the mark of a foot in the sandy beach of his desert island. That abominable token, in a place that he fancied was sacred to himself, in a part, he made sure, never trodden by the sole

of man,
bore about with me the same ideal imprint
out, not by the ocean-brine, but with blood!

haunted him wherever he went.

So did mine. I

to be washed

As I walked homeward after this adventure, and reflected on my former opinions, I felt that I had done the gallant major an injustice. It seemed likely that a man of his profession might be called out even to the ninth time, nay, that men of the peaceful cloth might, on a chance, be obliged to have recourse to mortal combat

As for gentlemen at the bar, I have shown how they may get into an affair of honor in a twinkling.

"NOTHING BUT HEARTS!"

SHE IS ALL HEART."?

It must have been the lot of every whist-player to observe a phenomenon at the card-table, as mysterious as any in

nature, I mean the constant recurrence of a certain trump throughout the night, —a run upon a particular suit, that sets all the calculations of Hoyle and Cocker at defiance. The chance of turning-up is equal to the four denominations. They should alternate with each other, on the average, whereas a Heart, perhaps, shall be the last card of every deal. King or Queen, Ace or Deuce, still it is of the same clan.

You cut-and it comes again. "Nothing but Hearts!

The figure herewith might be fancied to embody this kind of occurrence; and, in truth, it was designed to commemorate an evening dedicated to the same red suit. I had looked in, by chance, at the Royal Institution: a Mr. Professor Pattison, of New York, I believe, was lecturing, and the subject was Nothing but Hearts!"

Some hundreds of grave, curious, or scientific personages were ranged on the benches of the theatre, —every one in his solemn black. On a table, in front of the Professor, stood the specimens hearts of all shapes and sizes—man's, woman's, sheep's, bullock's, on platters or in cloths were lying about as familiar as household wares. Drawings of hearts, in black or blood-red, (dismal valentines!) hung around the fearful walls. Preparations of the organ in wax, or bottled, passed currently from hand to hand, from eye to eye, and returned to the gloomy table. It was like some solemn Egyptian Inquisition, a looking into dead men's hearts for their morals.

"

The Professor began. Each after each he displayed the samples; the words "auricle" and "ventricle" falling frequently on the ear, as he explained how those " solemn organs pump in the human breast. He showed, by experiments with water, the operation of the valves with the blood, and the impossibility of its revulsion. As he spoke, an indescribable thrilling or tremor crept over my left breast, thence down my side, - and all over. I felt an awful consciousness of the bodily presence of my heart, till then nothing more than it is in song, a mere metaphor, so imperceptible are all the grand vital workings of the human frame! Now I felt the organ distinctly. There it was! There it was!—a fleshy core, ay, like that on the Professor's plate, throbbing away, auricle and ventricle, the valve allowing the gushing blood at so many gallons per minute, and ever prohibiting its return!

The Professor proceeded to enlarge on the important office

of the great functionary, and the vital engine seemed to dilate within me, in proportion to the sense of its stupendous respon•sibility. I seemed nothing but auricle and ventricle and valve. I had no breath, but only pulsations. Those who have been present at anatomical discussions can alone corroborate this feeling,― how the part discoursed of, by a surpassing sympathy and sensibility, causes its counterpart to become prominent and all-engrossing to the sense; how a lecture on hearts makes a man seem to himself as all heart, or one on heads causes a phrenologist to conceive he is "all brain."

Thus was I absorbed : my "bosom's lord," lording over everything beside. By and by, in lieu of one solitary machine, I saw before me a congregation of hundreds of human forcing-pumps, all awfully working together, the palpitations of hundreds of auricles and ventricles, the flapping of hundreds of valves! And anon they collapsed mine, the 'Professor's, those on the benches-all! all! — into one great auricle, one great ventricle, one vast, universal heart! The lecture ended, I took up my hat and walked out, but the discourse haunted me. I was full of the subject. A kind of fluttering, which was not to be cured even by the fresh air, gave me plainly to understand that my heart was not "in the Highlands," nor in any lady's keeping, but where it ought to be, in my own bosom, and as hard at work as a parish pump. I plainly felt the blood. like the carriages on a birthnight coming in by the auricle, and going out by the ventricle; and shuddered to fancy what must ensue, either way, from any "breaking the line." Then occurred to me the danger of little particles absorbed in the blood, and accumulating to a stoppage at the valve, pumps getting choked," a suggestion that made me feel rather qualmish, and for relief I made a call on Mrs. W– The visit was

the "

ill-chosen and mistimed, for the lady in question, by dint of good-nature, and a romantic turn - principally estimated by her young and female acquaintance—had acquired the reputation of being "all heart." The phrase had often provoked my mirth, but, alas! the description was now over true. Whether nature had formed her in that mould, or my own distempered fancy, I know not; but there she sat, and looked the Professor's lecture over again. She was like one of those games alluded to in my beginning, - Nothing but