dging his chair a little nearer.

The attention of the whole company was now turned upon the speaker. He
was an old gentleman, one side of whose face was no match for the
other. The eyelid drooped and hung down like an unhinged window
shutter. Indeed, the whole side of his head was dilapidated, and
seemed like the wing of a house shut up and haunted. I'll warrant that
side was well stuffed with ghost stories.

There was a universal demand for the tale.

"Nay," said the old gentleman, "it's a mere anecdote--and a very
commonplace one; but such as it is you shall have it. It is a story
that I once heard my uncle tell when I was a boy. But whether as
having happened to himself or to another, I cannot recollect. But no
matter, it's very likely it happened to himself, for he was a man very
apt to meet with strange adventures. I have heard him tell of others
much more singular. At any rate, we will suppose it happened to
himself."

"What kind of man was your uncle?" said the questioning gentleman.

"Why, he was rather a dry, shrewd kind of body; a great traveller, and
fond of telling his adventures."

"Pray, how old might he have been when this happened?"

"When what happened?" cried the gentleman with the flexible nose,
impatiently--"Egad, you have not given any thing a chance to happen
---come, never mind our uncle's age; let us have his adventures."

The inquisitive gentleman being for the moment silenced, the old
gentleman with the haunted head proceeded.

THE ADVENTURE OF MY UNCLE.

Many years since, a long time before the French revolution, my uncle
had passed several months at Paris. The English and French were on
better terms, in those days, than at present, and mingled cordially
together in society. The English went abroad to spend money then, and
the French were always ready to help them: they go abroad to save money
at present, and that they can do without French assistance. Perhaps the
travelling English were fewer and choicer then, than at present, when
the whole nation has broke loose, and inundated the continent. At any
rate, they circulated more readily and currently in foreign society,
and my uncle, during his residence in Paris, made many very intimate
acquaintances among the French noblesse.

Some time afterwards, he was making a journey in the winter-time, in
that part of Normandy called the Pays de Caux, when, as evening was
closing in, he perceived the turrets of an ancient chateau r