arrived. Mothers looked anxious-plighted maidens would sigh fre quently and look with tender gaze upon their future husband-the young men would laugh, laugh louder than was their wont to hush the secret care that preyed upon them. But what was the conscription, with the banishment, the danger, the wounds and death combined in the word to Jacques Cocast? He was a hunchback. His shoulders were exempt by nature from a knapsack. He was not a comely morsel for glory; he was not worthy of the powder and shot bestowed upon prettier men. No, he was secure in his deformity; his heart started not at the muttering of the beaten sheepskin. Hence Jacques Cocast, without one throb, save for the fate of some old acquaintance, might linger about the town hall of the arrondissement, and learn the fortune of his fellow villagers.

The day of drawing came. There was the shriek of triumph as one sprang into his mother's arms-as his sister clung about his neck-as his plighted wife, and now their wedding-day was certain-there were bursts of joy and tears of happiness as the exempt sprang among the crowd; and there were cries of despair, and sobbings as among breaking hearts as the new conscripts told the fate that tore them from their homes.

"Thank God for my hunch!" cried Jacques Cocast, twenty times as he saw the wretchedness of the conscript soldier.

Among those drawn to wear future laurels was Hercule Grossetête. He looked savage as a snubbed ogre; and the baker's beautiful daughter hung on his arm, and was crying her heart out, and vowing between her sobs, that for the sake of her dear Hercule, she would try to live and die a maid and Hercule with his fancy listening to the whistling bullets, smiled vacantly on the magnanimity of Félicité, and bade Heaven help her in all her trials.

And did the heart of Jacques Cocast rejoice at this? By no means -he felt no triumph at the calamity of Grossetête-no pleasure at the grief of his fair, false baker's daughter; but with a gush of gratitude, he exclaimed,

"Thank God for my hunch!"

Hercule Grossetête went to the wars. Fortune that had heaped such obloquy upon, the shoulders of Cocast, had fitted Grossetête for the dignity of a grenadier. He quitted the village, left the baker's daughter, and was soon marching, and perhaps, day-dreaming of pillage and epaulettes. We know not what struggles Félicité endured to keep her pledge to Hercule; they must have been severe and manifold; for it was at least six months after the departure of her grenadier that she wedded the son of the village grocer, the grocer father opportunely dying and leaving his stock and business to his only son. All the world that is all the village-believed in the conjugal bliss of the grocer and his wife. Pierre Chandelles was so meek, so gentle a soul, any woman must be happy with him.

Again, Félicité was always the sweetest-tempered girl: there had been curious tales of her sudden passion, but such tales had been trumped up by the ugliest girls of the village.

Three months had passed since Pierre and Félicité were one; and Jacques Cocast-for in the magnanimity of his soul he did not with

draw his custom from Pierre on account of his wife; besides, Pierre's was the only shop in the village-modestly tapped a sou on Pierre's counter, it being the intention of the tailor to dispense that coin in bees'-wax. Suddenly there was a noise within; Jacques recognised the voice of Félicité, albeit he had never before heard it at so high a pitch. Another minute, and Pierre rushes into the shop followed by his wife, who, heedless of the wants of a customer, heedless of the cries of her husband, demolished an earthen pipkin unluckily in her hand, her lord and sovereign's head. No sheep ever bled with more upon meekness than did Pierre Chandelles the grocer.

"What did you want?" asked Pierre, with still a vigilant eye to business.

"I'll call again when your wounds are dressed," said Jacques Cocast; "in the meantime, thank God for my hunch!"

Years went on, and Jacques Cocast gathered about him the small comforts of the world, and keeping the spirit of his youth, was blithe as a bird.

One autumn evening, wandering a mile or two on the road from the village, and thinking he knew not upon what, Jacques Cocast was suddenly startled in his reflections by a loud voice.

"For the love of the saints, if you have it, give me a pinch of snuff."

The prayer proceeded from a blind soldier, seated on a tree felled near the roadside.

"With all my heart," cried Cocast. "Here, empty my box." "Alas, good sir!" said the soldier, "look at me again." Cocast looked and saw that the man had lost both his arms. "You must, indeed, give me the snuff," said the soldier. "With all my heart, I say again," cried Cocast, and with the most "Good delicate care he supplied the nostrils of the mutilated veteran. Heavens!" suddenly exclaimed Cocast," why you are Hercule Grossetête."

"I am," answered the soldier. "And what have you to say to that?"

"What!" Jacques Cocast looking at the eyeless, armless victim of glory, could only say,

"Thank God for my hunch!"

Almost all men have a hunch of some kind. Let them, with Jacques Cocast, thank God for it.

A TEST OF EQUANIMITY.

TAKE a quart bottle of ink,-break it, and try if you can say "It's all for the best" whilst it's spoiling your best pantaloons.

H.

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Quiddy, with an air of the greatest astonishment.

"Why, what is there about it to astonish you?" said Grubb; "you knew she was going."

"I know she said she'd go," said Quiddy: "but I never thought she was in earnest. Gone to Aberdeen!"

"She was not the girl to trifle, that I can tell you," said Grubb; "she remained not an hour longer than was absolutely necessary to arrange affairs, and yesterday she went."

We must here observe that the conversation into which we have rushed abruptly had been commenced on the part of Grubb, in the monosyllabic style of which we have already given a specimen.

"Gone to Aberdeen!" again exclaimed Quiddy; and pointing to the spot where she stood, when she bade him farewell, he pathetically continued" And it's only a week ago that there she stood.-Poor Janet!-Gone!-And, Mister Grubb, what's come of the money?"

"That's well secured, you may be certain," replied the attorney, "for I drew up the trust-deed-ahem!-and Doctor Mc Squills and his bosom-friend, Mr. Davie Mc Endall, the undertaker, are the trustees."

"And she may marry anybody she likes, eh?"

"Save and except Phineas Quiddy, at present of Cow-lane, Shoreditch, Dealer in snuff and tobacco-I quote the deed, Mr. Quiddy' otherwise the whole of the said sum of ""

"I know all that," said Quiddy, impatiently; "there's no call for your repeating it." He paused for a moment, and then said, "Trustees? -Ha! Then, I suppose, she only gets the interest of the money after all ?"

"And upon the interest of a clear five hundred pounds-for old Sandy invested his money when stocks were low-she may live very comfortably in Aberdeen. The odd sum of thirty-eight pounds seventeen shillings and nine-pence, she has taken with her for present purposes."

"Thirty-eight, seventeen, nine," said Quiddy, musingly:" and that she has taken with her: what a sum for a girl that never knew what it was to have a guinea of her own! what will she ever do with it?"

"She has a notion," continued Grubb, not noticing Quiddy's observations, "of opening a small shop in the grocery line. By the bye, Mc Endall has given her a letter to his sister, who is settled there, and Nov.-VOL. LXIII. NO. CCLI.

X

will advise her on the matter; and, should it be thought to her advantage to do so, the trustees will let her have a hundred pounds to set up with."

"A hundred pounds!" eagerly said Quiddy, "a hundred pounds! Grocery-line-nonsense! Let her set up in my line, and send me the money, and I'll supply her with stock without a farthing profit.-There! -and that's acting like an old friend."

"I don't think Mr. Mc Endall (one of the trustees, remember,) would consent to that, for his sister's husband is in that way himself, and might not be thankful to him for sending down a rival in trade. But now, Mr. Quiddy, if you please, we will return to the business I came about."

"Oh-ah!" said Quiddy, pretending indifference; "the furniture. Why, to be sure, I did say I'd take it at a fair valuation, providing as how I was allowed time to pay for it: but forty-eight pounds fifteen is a mint of money for it."

"It is worth nearly double, as you must well know," replied Grubb. "And, now, to let you into a secret, it was Janet's earnest wish that it should be given to you; but to that Doctor Mc Squills would not listen."

"Curse Doctor Mc Squills!" muttered Quiddy; " what business was it of his'n, I should like to know. Besides," said the ungracious varlet, " as the girl has got all the money, it was the least she could have done. But the fellow never was a friend of mine."

"He was so far your friend that, at Janet's entreaty, he consented to let you have it at the value set upon it by your own appraiser (who between us, Mr. Q., is your intimate friend), and to allow you a twelvemonth for payment. However, we are willing to let you off the bargain; in which case we shall clear the things away this afternoon, and sell them by auction."

"Why, no-no," said Quiddy, with more alacrity than might have been expected from a dissatisfied purchaser; "as the things belonged to the poor dear departed, I'll have them for her sake."

The bargain was instantly concluded, certain papers were signed, and Grubb took his leave. Scarcely was he outside the door, however, when he was recalled by Quiddy.

"Mr. Grubb--Mr. Grubb-I was near forgetting to say something particular."

"Then be quick, if you please, for I am in haste," said Grubb. "Mr. Grubb," said Quiddy, with a very grave face, “we are all mortal."

"So I have been told," said Grubb. "Is that all you have to say?"

"No; but as I was saying, as we are all mortal, I should like to know what comes of all that money if poor Janet should die?"

"She may bequeath it in any manner she likes," replied the other; muttering as he went away, "The rapacious, unfeeling brute !"

"That's all I wanted to know," said Quiddy; and then thought to himself," I wonder whether Aberdeen is a healthy place."

It is an odd fact that, on that very evening, Quiddy sent to Mr. Rob'em, the appraiser, an old-fashioned mahogany escritoire, of which, in the course of his survey, the latter had expressed a very significant

admiration; and, three days afterwards, Quiddy sold a quantity of articles which to him were useless (but which chiefly had been the particular favourites of the " poor dear departed") for a trifle more than he was to pay for the whole. And here again, the gains were, of course, the result of" sheer industry."

Quiddy being now all alone in the business, ordered to be painted in large letters over his door, "QUIDDY AND CO."-the visionary Co. appearing to give respectability, breadth, and stability to his concern; and being also alone in the house, which he found too large for his own purposes-for, his small establishment, consisting of a small cheap boy, who assisted him in the shop, and a smaller and cheaper girl, who supplied the place which Janet had vacated by accepting certain Hundreds more substantial than the Chiltern-he exhibited in his window a notice of "Lodgings to Let." Quiddy did not in addition to this announcement put an advertisement into the "Times," but the gossips, male and female, of the neighbourhood, served him quite as well: for, "Why, if Mr. Quiddy isn't letting his first floor!" ran from one to another of them with the rapidity of wild-fire-the circumstance occupying their thoughts and conversation till displaced by some other local event of equal importance. The fortunate consequence to our hero of the determination to disencumber himself of the superfluous portions of his mansion, we shall presently see: in the mean time, behold him in the mental agony of bringing forth a letter.

It was ten o'clock, his household had retired to rest, and the shop (or the divan, as it would be termed in these march-of-intellect days, of which one remarkable, but anomalous characteristic is the love of calling things by their wrong names) was closed. In solitude and silence, at the table in the old back parlour, sat Quiddy. Before him lay a sheet of paper, on which he was looking with "lack-lustre eye;" at his side was a small dictionary, ready to act as an auxiliary in case of any important emergency; in one hand he held a pen, the featherend of which he was sedulously nibbling, whilst the other hand was occasionally employed in the inspiring process of scratching his head. He had been thus engaged for some time; and it must be confessed that he had composed the opening portion of his epistle with considerable facility, that portion consisting of the words, "Dear Janet:" But, as it will sometimes happen to the best-intentioned letter-writers, there he stuck. At length, after many mighty throes, the "cunning epistle" (to use an antiquated phrase in its modern sense) appeared, in matter and form following-the orthographical errors occurring, contrary to custom, in the shorter words, for which the writer trusted to the fidelity of his own memory; whilst in every case of doubt, respecting those of startling dimensions, that is to say, of three or more syllables, he prudently referred for information to his friend, little Entick:

"Dear Janet,

"This comes open to find you saif a rivd and in good helht as i can not say it leafs Me. It is impossible to describ how lonesum I fealand feal more greaft than ever that the poor dear departed is gorn to a better plaice, witch I wish it was the contrary, but it is no use to wish a Bout them as is ded. But when Mr. Grub come to Me to settel a