but ye can't, Mary, hide the stooping gait, keep the locks from frosting, or smooth the creases in your cheek. Sure and stealthy is the tread of age."

"And what, forsooth," rejoined Mistress Bright, now a little piqued and out of humour with the personal allusions of her husband, "has the tally of my years to do with your story?"

"Much, Mary," quietly added Tom. "For I must date it from the time when you were called-and with right good reason, toothe Village Pride. It seems but yesterday," continued he, "that we joined hands, with an hundred more, round the Maypole on the green. It seems but yesterday that we went Maying together, and roved through the fields and woods in the autumn-time, gathering woodnuts and mushrooms. It seems but yesterday, Mary, that you stood by the old well-that loitering-place for lad and lassie when I asked you to become my wife. All this seems but yesterday; and yet we were young then, and now we are old."

There was something in Tom Bright's

C

delivery that riveted the attention of his hearers. Not a word was spoken, even by Mistress Bright; and she felt, perhaps for the first time in her life, far more disposed to listen to her husband than exercise her own voluble powers.

A few present may remember, but a very few, that at the time I am alluding to, a stranger came amongst us. Whether he had any particular calling or object in being in these parts, I forget, and for aught can tell, was never told. For many weeks he remained at the Chequers, talking and spending freely; and by his off-hand way of offering a cup to any one who would drink, recounting tales and jests, singing roundelays, and making himself the very life of the hostelrie, soon became in high favour with all its frequenters. With a great many others of the same age and station as myself, I used often to pass my evening, and always on a Saturday, when work was done, in the kitchen of the inn. It was here we made our wrestling matches,

games at quoits, pitch-the-bar, and other of our rural sports. Little else, indeed, was spoken of than diversions of this kind; and although many a stoup of old October ale was tapped and quaffed, seldom did one leave with a reproach for ribaldry or deep-drinking.

I can scarcely account how the first step to the change took place; but soon after the Stranger's arrival, a very great alteration was made in the subjects of discussion and interest. Instead of the usual topics of discourse, he led us to speak of religion; and upon hearing the opinions taught us to express and believe, turned them into ridicule, and laughed them to scorn. Possessed of ready wit, and a tongue lighter than a sheep's bell, he silenced all our rude speech with the ease that a gust of wind puts out a feeble rushlight. We sat, and stared, and listened, and yet the more we listened, the more we wished to hear.

I should tell ye that the Stranger's appearance was remarkable, and one which I had never seen before, and never have seen since. He was lean and lank, high-shoul

dered, and crooked of limb. His head, devoid of brow, and bristling with short, crisp, coal-black hair, seemed placed upon his trunk without a neck; and his two small, black, snake-like eyes turned so restlessly in their

they were always glancing at the room, as if to read it.

twinkled and

sockets, that

every face in Strange as it

may appear, too, whenever thoughts arose amongst us, questioning who he was, his ends or purposes, and notwithstanding that they were unexpressed, he seemed to be as well aware of them as if dropped in plain and measured words. I recollect that this wonder-exciting faculty was particularly remarkable on an eventful Christmas Eve, on which my story turns.

We formed a wide ring about the hearth of the Chequers on the night before Christmas-day- and just one month before that named for my marriage-with the Stranger sitting in the centre of the circle. Between his lips was a long black and polished tube, and at the end a white earthen bowl in the form of a human scull, from which he drew

volumes of thick, dense, smoke, and threw them forth from his lips in clouds above his head. Lolling backwards in his chair, and with upturned chin, he appeared to be carelessly watching their progress, curling slowly from him, and as they neared the chimney, streaming upwards in the draught.

Forgetful, at the moment, of the present, I began thinking of what the future might be, and to weigh the probable events to come. "On this day month," thought I, "I shall be a husband."

"No you won't," said the Stranger, and, as if communing with himself, continued, "Human foresight is very short-remarkably so."

I cannot but say that this first remark occasioned some surprise, and I looked at him, startled, and saw his lips pursed with inward laughter, and his eyes shining like two glow-worms in the dark.

"You surely can't read a man's thoughts?" mentally observed I.

"Ha, ha, ha!" roared he, making the