the animal leaped upon the umbrella, flattened it out, and began to lunch upon Coombs. Not only did the beast eat that anxious inquirer after truth, but it swallowed the hooked handle of the umbrella, which was held tightly in Coombs's grasp, and for two or three weeks it wandered about with its nose buried among the ribs of the umbrella. It was very handy when there was rain, but it obstructed the animal's vision, and consequently it walked into town and was killed.

In some countries the umbrella is the symbol of dignity and power. One of the magnates of Siam is proud to begin his list of titles with "Lord of Thirty-seven Umbrellas." Conceive, if you can, the envy and hatred with which that bloated aristocrat must be regarded by a man who is lord of only fifteen umbrellas! Among certain African tribes the grandeur of the individual increases with the size, and not with the number, of the umbrellas. Did I ever tell you the story of the African chieftain who determined to surpass all his rivals in this respect?

He had made up his mind to procure the largest umbrella in the world, and he induced a trader to send his order to London for the article. Its ribs were forty feet in length, and its handle was like a telegraph pole. When it was distended, the effect was sublime. The machine resembled a green gingham circus-tent, and it was crowned with a ferule as large as a barrel. When the umbrella arrived, there was great rejoicing in the domestic circle of that dusky sovereign, and so impatient was the owner to test its qualities that he fairly yearned for the arrival of a rainy day. At last, one morning he awoke to find that his opportunity had come; the rain was pouring in torrents. Exultingly he called forth his vassals, and the work of opening the umbrella began in the presence of an awe-stricken multitude. Two entire days were consumed by the effort to elevate the monster, and at the end of the second day, as the task was done, the storm ceased and there was a general clearing up. The disappointed chieftain waited a day or two in vain for another shower, and finally, sick at heart, he commanded the umbrella to be closed. The work occupied precisely forty-eight hours, and just as the catch snapped upon the handle a thunder-gust came up, and it rained furiously all day. The frenzied monarch then consulted with his medicine man, and was assured that there would certainly be rain on the following Wednesday. The king therefore ordered the gingham giant up again. While the swarthy myrmidons were struggling with it there were at least sixty or seventy violent showers, but just as it was fairly open the clouds drifted away, and the sun came out with terrific force. And it remained out. There was not a drop of rain or so much as a fragment of cloud in the sky for two hundred and seventy-three days, the

umbrella remained open during all the time, while the potentate who owned it went dancing about daily in an ecstacy of rage. At the end of the period he sought the medicine man and slew him upon the spot. Then he ordered the umbrella down. The very next morning after it was closed the rain began, and it has been raining ever since.

Mrs. Adeler, that unfortunate savage thus became intimately familiar with one of the most striking of meteorological phenomena.

The influence of the umbrella upon the weather is a subject that has engaged the attention of millions of mankind. The precise laws by which that influence is exerted and governed have not yet been defined, but the fact of the existence of the influence is universally recognised. If there seems to be a promise of rain in the morning when I leave home, and I carry my umbrella with me, the sky clears before noon; but if I neglect to take my umbrella, I will certainly be drenched. If I carry an umbrella forty days, in order to be prepared in case of sudden showers, there will be perfect dryness during that period; but if I forget the umbrella on the forty-first day, the flood-gates of heaven will assuredly be opened. Sometimes the conduct of the elements is peculiarly aggravating. When I have been caught in town by a rainstorm and I had no umbrella, I have sometimes darted through the shower to a store to purchase one, but always just as the man has given me the change the rain has stopped. And when I have kept one umbrella at the house and another at the office, in order to be prepared at both ends of the line, all the storms have begun and expended their fury while I was passing between the two points.

This experience is not peculiar - it is that of every man who uses an umbrella. I am persuaded, Mrs. Adeler, that the time will come when science, having detected the character of the mysterious sympathy existing between umbrellas and the weather, will be able to give to a suffering world sunshine or rain as we want it. Whether we shall then be any better off is another matter.

And while we are discussing the weather, let me not forget to allude to the most remarkable of Judge Pitman's peculiarities. He is the only man in the world of whom I know anything who is always satisfied with the weather. No matter what the condition of the atmosphere, he is contented and happy, and willing to affirm that the state of things at any given moment is the very best that could have been devised.

In summer, when the mercury bolted up among the nineties, the judge would come to the front door with beads of perspiration standing out all over his red face, and would look at the sky and say, "Splendid! perfectly splendid! Noble weather for the poor and for the ice companies and the washerwomen!

I never saw sich magnificent

weather for dryin' clothes. They don't shake up any such climate as this in Italy. Gimme my umbreller, Harriet, while I sit out yer on the steps and enjoy it."

In winter, when the mercury would creep down fifteen degrees below zero, and the cold was nearly severe enough to freeze the inside of Vesuvius solid to the centre of the globe, Pitman would sit out on my fence and exclaim, "By gracious, Adeler! did you ever see sich weather as this? I like an atmosphere that freezes up yer very marrer. It helps the coal trade an' gives us good skeetin'

as if life was bright and beautiful, an' sorrer of no account."

On a showery day, when the sun shone brightly at one moment and at the next the rain poured in torrents, the judge has been known to stand at the window and exclaim, "Harriet, if you'd 'ave asked me how I liked the weather, I'd 'ave said, just as it is now. What I want is weather that is streaked like a piece of fat an' lean bacon-a little shine an' a little rain. Mix 'em up an' give us plenty of both, an' I'm yer man."

The judge is always happy in a thunder-storm,

When there was a drought, Pitman used to meet me in the street and remark, "No rain yet, I see! Magnificent, isn't it? I want my weather dry, I want it with the dampness left out. Moisture breeds fevers and ague, an' ruins yer boots. If there's anything I despise, it's to carry an umbreller. No rain for me, if you please."

When it rained for a week and flooded the country, the judge often dropped in to see me and to observe, "I dunno how you feel about this yer rain, Adeler, but it allers seems to me that the heavens never drop no blessin's but when we have a long wet spell. It makes the corn jump an' cleans the sewers an' keeps the springs from gittin' too dry. I wouldn't give a cent to live in a climate where there was no rain. Put me on the Nile, an' I'd die in a week. Soak me through an' through to the inside of my bones, and I feel

and one day, after the lightning had knocked down two of his best apple-trees and splintered them into fragments, and the wind had torn his chimney to pieces, I went over to see him. He was standing by the prostrate trees, and he at once remarked, "Did you ever know of a man havin' sich luck as this? I was goin' to chop down them two trees to-morrer, an' as that chimney never draw'd well, I had concluded to have it rebuilt. An' that gorgeous old storm has fixed things just the way I want 'em. Put me in a thunder-storm an' let the lightnin' play around me, an' I'm at home. I'd rather have one storm that 'd tear the inside out of the American continent than a dozen of yer little dribblin' waterin'-pot showers. If I can't have a rippin' and roarin' storm, I don't want none."

They say here in the village, but I do not believe it, that one day the judge was upon his roof fixing a shingle, when a tornado struck him, lifted him

off, carried him a quarter of a mile, and dashed him with such terrible force against a fence that his leg was broken. As they carried him home, he opened his eyes languidly and said, "Immortal Moses! what a storm that was! When it does

blow, it suits me if it blows hard. I'd give both legs if we could have a squall like that every day. I-I- -" Then he fainted.

If contentment is happiness, then the life of Pitman is one uninterrupted condition of bliss.

WELL there is in the west country,
And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a wife in the west country
But has heard of the well of St. Keyne.

An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,
And behind doth an ash-tree grow,
And a willow from the bank above

Droops to the water below.

A traveller came to the well of St. Keyne,
Joyfully he drew nigh,

For from cock-crow he had been travelling,
And there was not a cloud in the sky.

He drank of the water so cool and clear,
For thirsty and hot was he,

And he sat down upon the bank

Under the willow-tree.

There came a man from the house hard by
At the well to fill his pail ;

On the well-side he rested it,

And he bade the stranger hail.

"Now, art thou a bachelor, stranger" quoth he, "For an' if thou hast a wife,

The happiest draught thou hast drank this day That ever thou didst in thy life.

"Or hast thy good woman, if one thou hast, Ever here in Cornwall been?

For an' if she have, I'll venture my life
She has drank of the well of St. Keyne."

"I have left a good woman who never was here," The stranger he made reply,

"But that my draught should be the better for that, I pray you answer me why?"

"St. Keyne," quoth the Cornishman, "many a time Drank of this crystal well,

And before the angels summoned her,

She laid on the water a spell.

"If the husband of this gifted well
Shall drink before his wife,
A happy man thenceforth is he,

For he shall be master for life

"But if the wife should drink of it first,

God help the husband then!"

The stranger stoop'd to the well of St. Keyne,
And drank of the water again.

"You drank of the well, I warrant, betimes?"

He to the Cornishman said:

But the Cornishman smiled as the stranger spake, And sheepishly shook his head.

"I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;

But i' faith, she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church."

O

PN the shore of Smerwick harbour, one fine summer's morning, just at daybreak, stood Dick Fitzgerald "shoghing the dudeen," which may be translated, smoking his pipe. The sun was gradually rising behind the lofty Brandon, the dark sea was getting green in the light, and the mists, clearing away out of the valleys, went rolling and curling like the smoke from the corner of Dick's mouth.

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Dick, taking the pipe from between his lips, and looking towards the distant ocean, which lay as still and tranquil as a tomb of polished marble. 'Well, to be sure," continued he after a pause, “'tis mighty lonesome to be talking to one's self by way of company, and not to have another soul to answer one-nothing but the child of one's own voice, the echo! I know this, that if I had the luck, or maybe the misfortune," said he, with a melancholy smile, "to have the woman, it would not be this way with me!--and what in the wide world is a mar

But what was his astonishment at beholding, just at the foot of that rock, a beautiful young creature combing her hair, which was of a sea-green colour; and now, the salt water shining upon it, appeared, in the morning light, like melted butter upon cabbage.

Dick guessed at once that she was a Merrow, although he had never seen one before, for he spied the cohuleen driuth, or little enchanted cap, which the sea people use for diving down into the ocean, lying upon the strand, near her; and he had heard, that if he could possess himself of the cap, she would lose the power of going away into the water: so he seized it with all speed, and she, hearing the noise, turned her head about as natural as any Christian.

When the Merrow saw that her little diving-cap was gone, the salt tears-doubly salt, no doubt, from her came trickling down her cheeks, and she began a low mournful cry with just the tender voice of a new-born infant. Dick, although he knew well enough what she was crying for, determined to keep the cohuleen driuth, let her cry never so much, to see what luck would come out of it. Yet he could not help pitying her; and when the dumb thing looked up in his face, and her cheeks all moist with tears, 'twas enough to make any one feel, let alone Dick, who had ever and always, like most of his countrymen, a mighty tender heart of

his own.

"Don't cry, my darling," said Dick Fitzgerald; but the Merrow, like any bold child, only cried the more for that.

Dick sat himself down by her side, and took hold of her hand by way of comforting her. 'Twas in no particular an ugly hand, only there was a small web between the fingers as there is in a duck's foot; but 'twas as thin and as white as the skin between egg and shell.

"What's your name, my darling?" says Dick, thinking to make her conversant with him; but he got no answer; and he was certain sure now, either that she could not speak, or did not understand him he therefore squeezed her hand in his as the only way he had of talking to her. It's the universal language; and there's not a woman in the world, be she fish or lady, that does not understand it.

The Merrow did not seem much displeased at this mode of conversation; and, making an end of

"By all the red petticoats and check aprons between Dingle and Tralee," cried Dick, jumping up in amazement, "I'd as soon eat myself, my jewel! Is it I eat you, my pet ?—Now, 'twas some ugly ill-looking thief of a fish put that notion into your own pretty head, with the nice green hair down upon it, that is so cleanly combed out this morning!"

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Man," said the Merrow, "what will you do with me if you won't eat me?"

Dick's thoughts were running on a wife: he saw, at the first glimpse, that she was handsome; but since she spoke, and spoke too like any real woman, he was fairly in love with her. 'Twas the neat way she called him man, that settled the matter entirely.

"Fish," says Dick, trying to speak to her after her own short fashion; "fish," says he, "here's my word, fresh and fasting, for you this blessed morning, that I'll make you Mistress Fitzgerald before all the world, and that's what I'll do."

"Never say the word twice," says she; "I'm ready and willing to be yours, Mister Fitzgerald; but stop, if you please, till I twist up my hair."

It was some time before she had settled it entirely to her liking; for she guessed, I suppose, that she was going among strangers, where she would be looked at. When that was done the Merrow put the comb in her pocket, and then bent down her head and whispered some words to the water that was close to the foot of the rock.

top

Dick saw the murmur of the words upon the of the sea, going out towards the wide ocean, just like a breath of wind rippling along, and, says he, in the greatest wonder, "Is it speaking you are, my darling, to the salt water?"

"It's nothing else," says she, quite carelessly. "I'm just sending word home to my father, not to be waiting breakfast for me; just to keep him from being uneasy in his mind."

"And who's your father, my duck?" says Dick. "What!" said the Merrow, "did you never hear of my father? he's the king of the waves, to be sure!"

"And yourself, then, is a real King's daughter?" said Dick, opening his two eyes to take a full and true survey of his wife that was to be. "Oh, I'm nothing else but a made man with you, and a king your father:-to be sure he has all the money that's down in the bottom of the sea!"

"Money," repeated the Merrow, "what's money?" "Tis no bad thing to have when one wants it," replied Dick; "and maybe now the fishes have the understanding to bring up whatever you bid them?" "Oh yes," said the Merrow, "they bring me what I want."