Driver. Can't tell surely, sir. Master called I from the team this morning, and telled me I was to 'liver him at Burton; I knows nought on't, but I think he be's one of those doctor chaps who died in our town, and I be's to 'liver him at Burton this evening.

or

I need not pursue the dialogue further. The driver and the not "over particular," though now particularly tipsy wine-agent, proceeded until a bargain was actually struck for his conveyance to Burton, including the stowage of his wine samples on top of the coffin, and before I left W- I saw in the rich light of a summer evening, and with a cheer jeer from the stable-yard loiterers, the jovial wine-agent, with a claret face and drunken leer in his eye, pass out of the inn-yard, sharing the hearse-driver's seat, and thus indecorously enacting the part of volunteer mourner in this lonely funeral.

Strange very strange," thought I, as I turned from the window, "that a professional man'a doctor chap,' as honest Joe called him— should be left to wend his way to his last home thus unattended and apparently 'unwept and unhonoured.' There must be some mystery in the case, and I shall not forget to ask my friend at B- - about it; such an event cannot have happened in his town without his knowing the particulars."

Punctual to the appointed time my coach drew up. I took my place, a few hours saw me landed and housed with my friend and relative, and after welcomes had passed, and inquiries for the absent been intermingled with making acquaintance with a shoal of little whiteheaded relatives added to the family circle since I had been there before-when, the usual topics between friends meeting after a long interval were exhausted, I took occasion of a pause to advert to the subject of my curiosity, and said,

"Death has been busy here lately?"
"No," answered friend;
my

lately."

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no one in this town has died very

Very singular," I responded; "I encountered a hearse at W. which the driver said contained the body of a medical man who had died here, and which he was conveying to Burton, and strangely unattended, too, as I thought." In short, I related the whole scene of the commercial room at W just as I have given it to the reader.

As I proceeded in the narrative I perceived my companion's countenance became more serious, and his interest in the details more intense. When I concluded, he said,

"And you really saw that drunken wine-agent set out on the hearse with his wine samples packed on Dr. -'s coffin ?"

“Undoubtedly I did," I replied, somewhat startled by the inquiry, and the tone of it.

"Well,” replied my companion, a serious and thoughtful man, "this is one of those incidents to set us musing upon the manifestations of God's righteous judgments, which are more numerous even upon earth than men can discern, or care to trace if they could. It is a remarkable coincidence that you should have lighted upon the scene you describe, and then come here with the incidents fresh in your memory to learn their connexion with a sad but 'o'er true tale.""

He then proceeded to give me, nearly in the words I put down at the time, and now copy here,

THE STORY OF DR. H—

"When I told you that none of the residents in this town had lately died, I spoke truly; but there is one now fast approaching her latter end, a near neighbour, in whom we feel deep interest. A young woman, of meek piety, and great personal beauty, is now lying in the last stage of consumption, too probably induced by blighted prospects, disappointed affections, the corrosion of that delayed hope which maketh the heart sick,' all acting together on a too sensitive mind, the tenant of one of those frail frames which in their very beauty indicate a speedy decay.

"She had early become attached to, and then formed an engagement with, a young man in her own station of life, which was to be fulfilled whenever professional prospects opened, or fortune might otherwise prove favourable. Many years passed, and still their hopes were sustained on that which has fed and finally famished thousands the chance of f 'something turning up.' Still some obstacle interposed, the engagement continued unfulfilled and yet undissolved; but after a while neglect and coldness began to show themselves in the conduct of her betrothed husband, and presently disease came to do its part in annulling a contract the term of which was originally intended to run 'till death us do part.' "From the very commencement this poor young woman was fully aware of the mortal nature of her malady, and began quietly to wean her heart from life and its ties. A few weeks since, symptoms appeared which seemed to indicate that the end was approaching, and then, for the first time, she expressed a desire to have a parting interview with her affianced lover before she died.

"Her wish was immediately intimated to him, and though settled as a surgeon in a town at no great distance, it was slowly, and with evident reluctance, that he obeyed the summons. He had never during her whole illness made any inquiries, or otherwise evinced the slightest interest in the poor girl once so dear to him, and when he did appear at last he was evidently rather goaded by shame than drawn by good feeling to comply with her dying request. No man, however, is all evil, and it is but justice to Dr. H. to say that when he did answer the appeal he seemed touched by her sufferings and altered appearance; and though at first he shrank in visible confusion from the silent reproach of her gentle, uncomplaining eye, several affecting interviews took place between them. Better feelings seemed to rekindle in his bosom; he began to express hopes that her case was not altogether desperate; that he thought he might arrest the progress of disease-hopes to which she, poor fond wretch, listened, as the doomed traveller hurries after the mirage which is luring him deeper into the desert he is never to leave with life. Whether Dr. H. was merely trying to smooth the dying girl's passage from life after the fashion of worldly comforters, who will bid a sick man cheer up, for that he is better to-day,' when they know he cannot survive the morrow, or whether, in the vanity of professional skill, he really shared the delusion, he at least acted as if he felt the hope he expressed. He took up his temporary residence here, watched the bed of the dying girl with more than professional care, and when he went, as was supposed, to pay an occasional visit to the town where he was settled, speedily returned to his post again.

"If the change which disease had wrought in the poor patient was grievous to witness, that produced in her lover by dissipation and degrading habits was still more so, by as much as it pains us more to contemplate moral than physical ruin. Those who had known him when he first won the affections which he afterwards slighted, describe him as a young man of the highest promise, with manners most prepossessing; well connected, educated for a respectable profession, he entered life with every prospect of speedily finding the road to fortune and success. A few years of dissipation had destroyed all; those opportunities which, once neglected, never offer themselves again, had been more than once flung from him. Latterly, he was supposed to be becoming reckless, and whispers of his total disregard to all propriety were in circulation, though none were prepared for the terrible circumstances which were soon to mark the conclusion of his earthly career.

"That poor corpse which you encountered wending its neglected way to a dishonoured grave, exposed to ribald jeers, and committed to the charge of a solitary rustic hireling, was that of Dr. H. He died a committed felon in our town gaol."

I started.

"It is too true," continued my friend; "the conclusion of his story is soon told, and will verify my assertion.

"Dr. H. had been for about a month past a lodger in our town, ostensibly in attendance on the dying bed of poor Miss. -. He occasionally disappeared for a day or two, as was supposed to attend to professional or other business elsewhere. These absences soon, however, obtained a different explanation.

"Shortly after his coming among us, several of our leading shopkeepers began to complain of repeated thefts of more or less value, and what seemed most remarkable was that the stolen property was invariably some article of food or luxury, such as small delicate cheeses, curious pickles, rich preserves, rare liqueurs, or foreign fruits or delicacies of various sorts. At length, the sufferers began to compare notes, to make close observations, and to entertain suspicions, which ultimately issued in a formal charge against the wretched Dr. H. for shoplifting, and loining the articles in question.

"When first brought before the magistrates, the unhappy man assumed the usual tone of indignant innocence; talked high of 'calumny,' and threatened much of prosecutions for defamation; but the watch had been close and complete, the proofs in support of the charge too convincing, and the magistrate felt coerced to commit him for further examination, at the same time issuing a search warrant to examine his lodgings for traces of the stolen property.

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Upon executing this warrant the guilt of the miserable man was placed beyond all question; with the further discovery that, in their usual order of cause and effect, vice had been the instigator to crime and disgrace. Large quantities of the stolen articles were found in his possession, while among his papers was discovered a correspondence, from which it appeared too plainly that he had resorted to this system of plunder to supply materials for the revels of the inmates of an infamous house in Birmingham."

"Good Heavens!" I could not help exclaiming, "who can fathom the deep incongruities of that nest of unclean things the human heart? Such

shameless profligacy as you describe will account for the coldness and neglect with which this man treated his affianced wife. But why did he come to see her at all? And having come, and, as you say, evinced feel ing and sympathy for her sufferings, how are we to reconcile the horrid inconsistency of his staying to soothe her dying moments one day, with plunging into crime to minister to profligacy the next? I cannot understand it."

"It is indeed," rejoined my friend, "a dark chapter in the history of that desperately wicked thing the heart, in which one occasionally finds something brilliant or amiable embedded in a mass of what is foul or disgusting; that such things are, we know, for here is one of them, but how such contradictions can coexist is inexplicable."

"Well, but the sequel?" I asked. "Did this wretched man die by poison? How did Miss receive the dreadful intelligence?"

"As to the poor girl," he replied, "she is dying in happy unconsciousness of the whole affair; she thinks of her wretched lover as inevitably kept from her by professional duties. Nor did poison, as you have anticipated, bring about the sudden catastrophe; yet the sequel is, if possible, more awful than if it did. It was suspected that, in his desperation and with his knowledge of subtle poisons, he might resort to such an expedient to elude punishment and exposure, and he was closely watched accordingly, but when he found that all was known, and concealment or bravado equally impossible, he became first outrageous and then greatly dejected. A few days, however, brought on the catastrophe. Deprived, by the strictness of the prison regulations, of the stimulating liquors to which he had become habituated, the sudden change brought on, as usually happens, a fearful paroxysm of delirium tremens,' which, combining with agitation, shame, despair, resulted in an acute fever, in a few days bringing this victim of his vices to the grave. He died raving and blaspheming. And the last finish to the fearful picture is given in your narration of what took place this evening at W. His friends refused to own him, or conduct his funeral; it was despatched from this unattended, in the hope that the interment might take place under the shade of night; and it may well be termed a remarkable coincidence that, on its way to a dishonoured grave, the drunkard's corpse should obtain the convoy of a drunken wine-agent to play the part of chief mourner, and that his coffin should proceed to its destination surmounted with wine samples, the emblems of the vice which destroyed its tenant. It is an awful parody upon the touching custom of placing the soldier's accoutrements upon the soldier's bier."

He ceased, and I lost no time in "making a note" of an incident so fully illustrative of the assertion that "Fact is often stranger than fiction."

R.

A FRENCHMAN IN KENTUCKY.*

HAVE any of our readers had the felicity of forming the acquaintance of an Ingot-we do not mean a solid lump of gold, worth so much per ounce troy, according to the market agio, but a real living Ingot-in other words, a French adventurer, sent out to California at government expense, from the proceeds of the renowned Ingot Lottery? As the question appears to be a very moot one, we think we cannot run any risk in introducing them on paper to a certain M. Acacia, ex-sergeant of the Chasseurs de Vincennes, but at present writing, citizen of the United States, carpenter, gunpowder manufacturer, and editor of the Semi-Weekly Messenger, at Oaksburg, Hamilton county, Kentucky. His adventures in the land of his adoption are certainly curious, and we cannot do better than give a sketch of them, to show how a Frenchman fares in America.

In July, 1856, Acacia was lounging along the streets of Louisville when he heard half a dozen shots fired. Thinking, at first, it was only a couple of Kentuckians having a peaceable explanation, he did not disturb himself; but on approaching the scene of action he found one man surrounded by half a dozen rowdies. A few blows from the Frenchman's nervous arm, and the ruffians fled. Acacia then introduced himself to the stranger, who proved to be the Rev. John Lewis, of England, come out with a mission to put down slavery. Acacia was much delighted at the meeting, for, among other speculations, he had built a chapel, which he let out to the various congregations in turn. But, although the chapel was painted red, white, and blue, with any quantity of stars in the last field to represent the American banner, while the Frenchman's head clerk played the cornet-à-piston, as accompaniment to the hymns, and the opposition chapel had only a flageolet, the chapel did not draw as it should do. The ladies were growing tired of the local preachers, and wanted fresh excitement. Mr. Lewis, who had been in India, and various parts of the unknown world, was a bonne bouche for Acacia, and he soon made him a handsome offer to accompany him home and enlighten the town as to the mysteries of Swedenborgianism, the peculiar doctrine he professed.

On arriving at Oaksburg, Mr. Lewis was introduced to Miss Julia Alvarez, Acacia's partner, and, pious man though he was, became enamoured of her at first sight. The evidences of his passion Acacia accepted rather gladly, for, with the fickleness of a Frenchman, he had recently lost his heart to a lovely young American girl, Miss Lucy Anderson, and was somewhat in doubt as to how to dissolve partnership with Julia. But his first business was to kick out his overseer, one Appleton, who had dared to insult his young mistress. The overseer departed, vowing vengeance, while Acacia and Lewis proceeded to pay a visit to the Andersons, much to Julia's disquietude. Lucy was

* Scènes de la Vie des Etats-Unis. Par Alfred Assollant. Paris: Hachette et Cie.