luxuriant, and will be treated at greater length hereafter) his hair and beard in the wildest confusion. He stares about him with a pair of well-opened dark eyes, which contrast strangely with his fair northern complexion. Next comes a spasmodic stretching of arms and legs, a whisking of bed-clothes, and the solid thump of two feet upon the floor. the floor. Another Another survey of the room, ending with a deep breathing-in of the fresh air, and an appreciative smacking of the lips.

“O nose, eyes, ears,—all my godlike senses and faculties! what a sensation is this of mother earth at sunrise. Better, seems to me, than ocean, beloved of my Scandinavian forefathers. Hear those birds! look at those divine trees,the tall moist grass growing round them! By my head! living is a glorious business. What, ho! slave, empty me here yon bath-tub, and then ring the bell!"

The slave (a handsome handy fellow, unusu

ally docile, inseparable from his master, whose life-long bondsman he was, and so much like him in many ways-owing perhaps to the intimacy always subsisting between the two-that he had more than once been confounded with him) this obedient menial

No! not even for a moment will we mislead our reader. Are we not sworn confidants ! What is he to think, then, of this abrupt introduction, unheralded, unexplained! Be it at once confessed that Mr Helwyse travelled alone and unattended-that there was no slave or other person of any kind in the room-and that this high-sounding order of his was a mere ebullition of his peculiar humour.

He was a philosopher, and was in the habit of making many of his tenets minister to his amusement, when in his more sportive and genial moods. Not to exhaust his characteristics too early, it need only be observed here, that he held body and soul to be distinct, and so far

antagonistic that one or other must be master; furthermore, that the soul's was the more desirable supremacy. Whether it were also invariable and uncontested, there will be opportunity of finding out later. Meantime, this dual condition was productive of not a little harmless entertainment to Mr Helwyse, at times when persons less happily constituted would have become victims of listlessness. Be the conditions what they might, he was never without a companion whose ways he knew, and whom he was yet never weary of questioning and studying. No subject so dull that its different aspects, as viewed from soul and from body, would not give it piquancy. No question so trivial that its discussion on material and on spiritual grounds would not lend it importance. was any enjoyment so keen, or sorrow so poignant, as not to be enhanced by the contrast of its physical with its spiritual phase.

Nor

Awaking, therefore, on this May morning,

and being in a charming humour, this young man chose to look upon himself as the proprietor of a body-servant, and gave his orders with patrician imperiousness. The obedient menial then-to resume the thread-sprang at the throat of the tub-trunk, whipped off the lid, and discharged the contents upon the bed in a twinkling. This done, he stepped to the bellrope, and lent it a vigorous jerk, soon answered by a brisk tapping at the door.

Please, sir, did you ring?

"Indeed, I did, my dear! are you the pretty chambermaid?"

This bold venture is met by silence, modified only by a low delighted giggle. Presently— Did you want anything, sir, please?"

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"Ever so many things, my girl,-more than my life is long enough to tell! First, though, I want to apologise to you for addressing you from behind a closed door; but circumstances which are neither to be explained nor overcome

forbid my opening it. Next, two pails full of the best cold water at your earliest convenience. Quick now-there's a Hebe!"

"Very good, sir!" giggles Hebe, retreating

down the passage.

It is to be supposed that it was the plebeian body-servant who carried on this unideal conversation, and that the patrician soul had nothing to do with it. The ability to lay the burden of lapses from good taste and from other goods upon the shoulders of the flesh, is sometimes convenient and comforting.

Balder Helwyse, master and man, turns away from the door, and in so doing, catches sight of a white-robed, hairy-headed spectre in the looking-glass, the phantom face of which at once expands in a genial expression of mirth; an impalpable arm is stretched forth, and the mouth seems thus to speak:

"Stick to your bath, my good fellow, and the evil things of this life shall not get hold of you!