being more unmercifully whipt.

How many

lashes I received, is and will be a mystery; but this I know, that but for the interference of some of the more humane of the bystanders, I might and would have received several dozen more. When the ruffian was wrenched from me, I was told by one of the persons present (for it will readily be credited I was insensible to everything) he growled out something about no man making an attempt on the virtue of his wife with impunity. The virtue of his wife! I could solemnly declare, had I been to die that moment, that I never made an attempt on the virtue of his wife, or the virtue of the wife of any man, living or dead.

Miss Jackson did not keep to her appointment; indeed, after what had occurred I deemed it fortunate she did not.

I went home fully determined to institute an action against my assailant, so soon as I could ascertain his name and address. This I knew I should have no difficulty in doing, as there were so many persons present. As to witnesses to prove the assault, I had clouds of them when

ever matters were in a sufficiently advanced state to require their testimony.

On my return home, I found the friend who had introduced me to Miss Jackson, waiting for me. I mentioned to him what had occurred, and the determination to which I had come to prosecute my unknown assailant. My friend was very inquisitive to know who had thus assaulted me, and what could have prompted the fellow to such a step. I told him again, as I had told him before, though he seemed to think I rather wanted the will than the power, that I could give him no information on either head.

"Can you not," said he; "can you not, at any rate, give me some description of the personal appearance of your assailant?"

I answered in the affirmative.

"Well, let me hear all you can communicate on the subject."

I described the brute as well as I could. "Oh! I see now how it is! It is Mr. Jackson!" exclaimed he after a moment's hesitation. "Mr. Jackson! Impossible! Did you not tell

me that Miss Jackson's father was dead, and

that she never had a brother?"

"It is another Mr. Jackson,” replied my friend; 66 one who lives in the same street. Do you not recollect having seen a Mrs. Jackson, a beautiful woman, among those present at Miss Jackson's mother's house? Her husband would have been present also, but was out of town that day."

I did recollect having seen a newly-married lady at Mrs. Jackson's on the evening in question. I mentioned this to my friend.

"But what possible ground of offence could you have given to her husband?" inquired my friend

"None in the world that I know of," answered I. "I never saw the man before in my life: : his wife I have never seen before nor since that evening."

"The matter is certainly involved in much mystery. Did he say nothing when committing the assault that could have led you to infer the cause of his displeasure?"

"Nothing farther than asking me whether a letter he held in his hand, was in my hand-writ

ing; which I confessed it was. I believe he also muttered something about no man's making an attempt to seduce his wife with impunity."

"What! it is not possible that you could have meditated anything of the kind?" observed my friend, in a tone indicative of surprise.

"Never, never; and I had thought that you were the last man in the world that could have conceived the bare possibility of such a thing."

"Did you ever write to his wife at all; for if you did, however innocently, a jealous husband would construe an epistle from a man to his wife, into something bad? Do you not know, as Shakspeare says, that

'Trifles, light as air,

Are to the jealous confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ.'"

"I never in my life penned a syllable to his or any other person's wife; but I will confess to you that I did write to Miss Jackson, to whom you introduced me; and, from the hasty glance I gave the letter my assailant held in his hand, it is the identical one I addressed to her. How he came by that letter, is to me as mysterious as any of the countless incomprehensibilities in nature."

G

"What was the nature of your note to Miss Jackson, if it be fair to ask such a question?" inquired my friend.

"It was written in very general terms. I merely, as I suppose is common in all correspondence between the sexes in their unmarried state, professed a fervent, an immutable, an eternal attachment to her; an attachment formed from what I had seen of her on the evening and at the party referred to, and concluded by urgently begging the favour of a meeting with her, next afternoon, at a given hour, at Hyde Park Corner."

"I have it! I have it!" exclaimed my friend, quite in the style of Archimedes, when he made his greatest discovery. "The letter you intended for Miss Jackson has by mistake gone to Mrs. Jackson; and no wonder that such an epistle should have kindled suspicions in the husband's breast: no wonder that he chastised you as he did."

The hypothesis struck me as probable, though I could not exactly see how the missending of the letter should have occurred.