change my dress, and requiring a pair of scissors, looked for them in a work-box of my wife's in the adjoining room, and there, lying open in the box, was a note beginning 'Angelic Being!' This was interesting, so I went on, and found it was from a fellow saying how he loved her, and asking why, loving him as she confessed she did, she would not consent to be his, and fly from that imbecile husband of hers, union with whom was a disgrace to a woman of her soul. He said his fond heart would not allow him to believe that her decision was final, and that he would come that night at seven o'clock to hear if she would not relent. It was signed Aaron Lewis,' and I saw by the date that the promised visit was to take place that very evening, and indeed in half an hour. So I assembled the servants, and told them that if they told their mistress I had come home, I would flay them all alive-not only the fellows who

told, but the entire household.

Then I

locked myself into an anteroom that opened on to the drawing-room, and waited.

"Presently in came my lady and ordered tea; as soon as she was settled I got a chink of the door open to see all that went on, and before long Mr Aaron Lewis was announced. You never saw such a thief to look at, Donald. He was a short, stout, thick-set fellow, with a neck like a bull, a head of hair like a black haystack, a nose like a pump-handle, and a nigger's blubber lips. He was evidently a Jew, and a very bad dirty sort of Jew. When he came in. he kissed his hand three times, skipped across the room, and went down with a bang on his knees before Carlotta. She gave him her hand like a stage empress, and he kissed it and said, 'Relent! relent! and fly with me to love and joy.' Then she put up her handkerchief to her eyes with one hand, and with the other stroked

his filthy hair, and warbled out, Tempt me not, my Aaron-tempt me not; be satisfied that my heart is thine, and wait! wait!' I suppose she thought I was seedy and going off the hooks, and she was hedging with this beast, and meant, wait till I was dead. If it is worldly prudence,' said the Jew, who was a deuced poetical kind of Jew-if it is worldly prudence which stifles the emotions of that fond heart, dismiss it. I have wealth-I have gold-I have riches; I shower them at your feet!' and he butted his great bullet-head forward in his ecstasy and upset the teapot all over the place, and I swear I could hardly help laughing.

"Then they set to work and abused me. Lord! how they did pitch into me, and my follies and weaknesses! I can tell you, Donald, this woman I had married out of pity had no pity upon me. At last the Jew said, in a tragical voice, 'If he was here, if I saw him, I could not contain myself, I

would r-r-r-rend him from limb to limb,' and he rolled his eyes and gnashed his teeth 'Would you ?' said I, step

like an ogre.

ping out. Well, here I am-rend away!' Wasn't the Jew taken aback! You should have seen his face. Then I took him by the scruff of the neck and kicked him up and down the room, and then I got a cutting-whip and let into him till he bellowed like a mad bull, and I took the butt and crashed into his head and face with it, and bundled him to the window when I was tired and tilted him out into the garden. Carlotta had fainted really, I believe; but she came to quick enough. I hadn't much to say to her, and I said it in a few words. She began her theatricals, but I said, 'Stop;

I

may be a noodle and an imbecile and a disgrace to be married to, but I'm not noodle enough to have anything more to do with you. This house will be shut up the day after to-morrow, you can make your own

you

and we

arrangements in the mean time. To-morrow send a lawyer to meet mine at the agent's at twelve o'clock. They will draw up a deed of separation; I wish to heaven it was a divorce, but you're too cunning for that. I shall settle £500 a-year on you. I am going to Europe next week; if should happen to be going that way meet, be good enough to remember we're total strangers; but I sincerely hope I may never see your face again.' Then I got my traps together and went to the hotel. My wife had run up awful tics in Calcutta, and paying them off really dipped me, and I had to draw on my grandmother for an extra grant. She was a little astonished at my expenses, and I had to tell her a cockand-bull story about the fearful mortality among my elephants-as if I kept a herd of a few hundreds all to myself. The good old soul paid up at once. I believe she imagines ever since that cavalry regiments