"Thank heaven, I'm not worth a ducat."" Suddenly, however, he bethought himself of the ring with which Mootiah had presented him, and which he had preserved only as a memorial of that worthy creature's kindness, it being of little or no other value in his estimation. But as it was unquestionably a diamond, though covered with incrustations, and the ring, though of the clumsiest workmanship, was gold, he carried it to a jeweller-and to his astonishment, found that the stone was of the first water, and that it required only a skilful artist to redeem its lustre. He disposed of it for £800, which, in that crisis of their fortunes, seemed a mine of wealth. But much better things came. By the death of a French uncle, who had been one of the fermiers of the revenue under the old régime, Julia inherited considerable wealth. The bequest being coupled with the condition that her husband, whoever he might be, should assume the name of Montreville, and reside a certain portion of the year in France, as a superintendent of the estates devised to her, they immediately established themselves at Paris.

Years flowed on in uninterrupted happiness, and Montreville had almost forgotten the trials and misfortunes of his youth; when one morning, as he was crossing the Pont Neuf, his observation was

drawn to a short, elderly Englishman, meanly attired, and walking with a slow desultory pace, denoting, as he rightly conjectured, considerable uneasiness of mind. The stranger also gazed intently on Montreville, and in a few instants they recognized each other. It was W―l, the Madras governor, the man whose injustice had crushed his early hopes; but the memory of that injustice was now obliterated by the claims of the unhappy man to his compassion. "Do you recollect," said Montreville," the name of Williams ?"-" I do," returned W-1; "I remember it with regret." Montreville would not suffer him to apologize, but having, by the courtesy of his manner, won the old man's confidence, heard from him the melancholy recital of his distresses. The story was a short one. He had been recalled, and had fled his country, where a bill of pains and penalties hung over his head. He was now abandoned by all who had basked in the sunshine of his power, on many of whom he had lavished favours, which laid the foundations of ample fortunes. A few minutes before Montreville had met him, he had eagerly hastened, in the warmth of a long and early friendship, to shake by the hand one of those whom his bounty had fed and enriched; but his advances were scornfully repulsed, and this had occasioned

the agitation which Montreville had remarked in his features.

In this destitution Montreville humanely succoured him, and having raised some subscriptions among the most opulent of the few Englishmen who were then at Paris, settled on him a small provision, which allowed him to wear out the remnant of his days in a decent obscurity. The vicissitudes we have related, form an instructive lesson; and those who act unjustly while they stand upon the slippery heights of fortune, would do well to remember the fate of W-1, the governor of Madras.

57

THE MERMAID.-AN EASTERN TALE.

"DID I ever tell you of my adventure with a

mermaid?"

"A mermaid!-No, never: I should like mightily to hear it, Captain Quizzle."

"It is the most remarkable of all my adventures: I wonder I have not told you of it." "You have so many strange must have been an eventful one.

it, Captain."

stories : your life

Pray let us have

"Well.-I traded for several years in the Eastern Archipelago. The swarms of clusters of islands thereabouts are amazing; not a tenth part of them are ever visited by human beings, and consequently all the strange things in the animal and even the vegetable creation are to be found there: monsters, as we call them, seem to congregate amidst these delicious spots, because they are there out of the reach of man's destructive power. You have

heard of the Brobdignag butterflower discovered by Sir Stamford Raffles in an island of the Archipelago, at mere sight of which one of his Hindu servants died of fright:-calyx like the dome of St. Paul's; pistils like good-sized fir-trees; pollen in such prodigious quantity that wild-beasts are often smothered in it. Sir Stamford likewise met with the Dugong, or mer-man. He could only get a dead specimen; I have often seen the animal alive; I have shaken hands with one, for they are exceedingly gentle creatures. All these things are now pretty notorious. But besides these, unicorns are so plentiful (though they can never be taken alive, as you all know), that their horns are used as walking-sticks by the respectable Malays, and as canes by the schoolmasters. The Malay boys require a vast deal of banging to get their alphabet properly, the letters are so difficult to sound (their mouths often grow awry in the attempt), and the unicorn's horn saves trouble, one stroke of it raising twenty large blisters. Then they have tooth-picks made of griffin's claws-but to the mermaid.

"I had often heard of mermaids in different parts of the Archipelago, but I did not credit the stories told me by the native rascals, who are desperate liars. A grey-headed old man, however, one day, upon my taxing him with deceit upon this point,