I HAVE told a lie!

CHAPTER XII.

I have written the thing that is not, and the truth came not There was deceit in my ink, and my paper is

from my pen.

stained with a falsehood.

Nevertheless, it was in ignorance

that I erred, and consequently the lie is white.

When I told you, Gentle Reader, that any day you pleased you might behold my heroine, Mrs. Gardiner, I was not aware that Mrs. Gardiner was no more.

"No more!"

No- for by advices just received, she is now Mrs. Burrel, the wife of the quondam little old Bachelor at Number Eight.

"What!

- married! Why then she did go over the wall to him as she promised."

No, miss he came over to her.

"What!-By a rope ladder."

No

there was no need for so romantic an apparatus. The wall, as already described, was a dwarf one, about breast high, over which an active man, putting one hand on the top, might have vaulted with ease. How Mr. Burrel, unused to such gymnastics, contrived to scramble over it, he did not know himself; but as he had scraped the square toes of each shoe damaged each drab knee frayed the front of his satin waistcoat - and scratched his face, the probability is, that after clambering to the summit, he rolled over, and pitched headlong into the scrubby holly-bush on the other side.

For a long time it appears, without giving utterance to the slightest sentiment of an amorous nature, he had made himself particular, by constantly haunting the dwarf wall that divided him from the widow, overlooking her indeed more than was proper or pleasant. For once, however, he happened to look at the right moment, for casting his eyes towards Number Nine, he saw that his fair neighbor was in a very 'disagreeable and dangerous predicament—in short, that she was in her own water-butt, heels upwards.

He immediately jumped over the brick partition, and bellowing for help, succeeded, he knew not how, in hauling the unfortunate lady from her involuntary bath.

By no means, madam. It was simply from taking her hobby to water. In plainer phrase, whilst endeavoring to establish an aquatic lily in her waterbutt, she overbalanced herself and fell in.

The rest may be guessed. Before the Widow was dry, Mr. Burrel had declared his passion — Gratitude whispered that without him she would have been "no better than a dead lignum vitæ "- and she gave him her hand.

The marriage day, however, was not fixed. At the desire of the bride, it was left to a contingency, which was resolved by her "orange-flowering" last Wednesday- and so ended the "Horticultural Romance" of Mrs. Gardiner.

A TALE OF TERROR.

THE following story I had from the lips of a well-known Aeronaut, and nearly in the same words.

in

It was on one of my ascents from Vauxhall, and a gentleman of the name of Mavor had engaged himself as a companion my aerial excursion. But when the time came his nerves failed him, and I looked vainly around for the person who was to occupy the vacant seat in the car. Having waited for him till the last possible moment, and the crowd in the gardens becoming impatient, I prepared to ascend alone; and the last cord that attached me to the earth was about to be cast off, when suddenly a strange gentleman pushed forward and volunteered to go up with me into the clouds. He pressed the request with so much earnestness, that having satisfied myself by a few questions of his respectability, and received his promise to submit in every point to my directions, I consented to receive him in lieu of the absentee; whereupon he stepped with evident eagerness and alacrity into the machine. In another minute we were rising above the trees; and in justice to my companion, I must say, that in all my experience, no person at a first ascent had ever shown such perfect coolness and self-possession. The sudden rise of the machine, the novelty of the situation, the real and exaggerated dangers of the voyage, and the cheering of the spectators, are apt to cause some trepidation, or at any rate excitement in the boldest individuals; whereas the stranger was as composed and comfortable as if he had been sitting quite at home in his own librarychair. A bird could not have seemed more at ease, or more in its element, and yet he solemnly assured me upon his honor, that he had never been up before in his life. Instead of exhibiting any alarm at our great height from the earth, he evinced the liveliest pleasure whenever I emptied one of my bags of sand, and even once or twice urged me to part with

more of the ballast. In the mean time, the wind, which was very light, carried us gently along in a northeast direction, and the day being particularly bright and clear, we enjoyed a delightful bird's-eye view of the great metropolis, and the surrounding country. My companion listened with great interest, while I pointed out to him the various objects over which we passed, till I happened casually to observe that the balloon must be directly over Hoxton. My fellow-traveller then for the first time betrayed some uneasiness, and anxiously inquired whether I thought he could be recognized by any one at our then distance from the earth. It was, I told him, quite impossible. Nevertheless he continued very uneasy, frequently repeating, "I hope they don't see me," and entreating me earnestly to discharge more ballast. It then flashed upon me for the first time that his offer to ascend with me had been a whim of the moment, and that he feared the being seen at that perilous elevation by any member of his own family. I therefore asked him if he resided at Hoxton, to which he replied in the affirmative; urging again, and with great vehemence, the emptying of the remaining sand-bags.

This, however, was out of the question, considering the altitude of the balloon, the course of the wind, and the proximity of the sea-coast. But my comrade was deaf to these reasons - he insisted on going higher; and on my refusal to discharge more ballast, deliberately pulled off and threw his hat, coat, and waistcoat overboard.

"Hurrah, that lightened her!" he shouted; "but it's not enough yet," and he began unloosening his cravat. "Nonsense," said I; 66 my good fellow, nobody can recognize you at this distance, even with a telescope."

"Don't be too sure of that," he retorted rather simply; "they have sharp eyes at Miles's."

"At where?"

"At Miles's Madhouse!"

A

Gracious Heaven! - the truth flashed upon me in an instant. I was sitting in the frail car of a balloon, at least a mile above the earth, with a Lunatic. The horrors of the situation, for a minute, seemed to deprive me of my own senses. sudden freak of a distempered fancy a transient fury — the slightest struggle might send us both, at a moment's notice, into eternity! In the mean time, the Maniac, still repeating

his insane cry of "higher, higher, higher," divested himself, successively, of every remaining article of clothing, throwing each portion, as soon as taken off, to the winds. The inutility of remonstrance, or rather the probability of its producing a fatal irritation, kept me silent during these operations: but judge of my terror, when having thrown his stockings overboard, I heard him say, "We are not yet high enough by ten thousand miles one of us must throw out the other."

To describe my feelings at this speech is impossible. Not only the awfulness of my position, but its novelty, conspired to bewilder me - for certainly no flight of imagination — no, not the wildest nightmare-dream, had ever placed me in so desperate and forlorn a situation. It was horrible ! — horrible! Words, pleadings, remonstrances were useless, and resistance would be certain destruction. I had better have been unarmed, in an American wilderness, at the mercy of a savage Indian! And now, without daring to stir a hand in opposition, I saw the Lunatic deliberately heave first one, and then the other bag of ballast from the car, the balloon of course rising with proportionate rapidity. Up, up, up it soared to an altitude I had never even dared to contemplate the earth was lost to my eyes, and nothing but the huge clouds rolled beneath us! The world was gone I felt forever! The Maniac, however, was still dissatisfied with our ascent, and again began to

mutter.

"Have you a wife and children?" he asked, abruptly.

Prompted by a natural instinct, and with a pardonable deviation from truth, I replied that I was married, and had fourteen young ones who depended on me for their bread.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Maniac, with a sparkling of his eyes that chilled my very marrow. "I have three hundred wives, and five thousand children; and if the balloon had not been so heavy by carrying double, I should have been home to them by this time."

"And where do they live?" I asked, anxious to gain time by any question that first occurred to me.

"In the moon,” replied the Maniac; "and when I have lightened the car I shall be there in no time."

I heard no more, for suddenly approaching me, and throwing his arms around my body

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