not His sublime compassion. Are we quite sure
that we comprehend the awful and far-sighted game that is being played
for us and others so well that we can sit by and safely dictate its
moves?

How will Messrs. Morphy or Staunton, on whose calculations, I will
suppose, you have staked L100, brook your insane solicitations to spare
this pawn or withdraw that knight from prise, on the board which is but
the toy type of that dread field where all the powers of eternal
intellect, the wisdom from above and the wisdom from beneath--the
stupendous intelligence that made, and the stupendous sagacity that
would undo us, are pitted one against the other in a death-combat, which
admits of no reconciliation and no compromise?

About poor Mrs. Nutter's illness, and the causes of it, various stories
were current in Chapelizod. Some had heard it was a Blackamoor witch who
had evoked the foul fiend in bodily shape from the parlour cupboard, and
that he had with his cloven foot kicked her and Sally Nutter round the
apartment until then screams brought in Charles Nutter, who was smoking
in the garden; and that on entering, he would have fared as badly as the
rest, had he not had presence of mind to pounce at once upon the great
family Bible that lay on the window-sill, with which he belaboured the
infernal intruder to a purpose. Others reported 'twas the ghost of old
Philip Nutter, who rose through the floor, and talked I know not what
awful rhodomontade. These were the confabulations of the tap-room and
the kitchen; but the speculations and rumours current over the
card-table and claret glasses were hardly more congruous or
intelligible. In fact, nobody knew well what to make of it. Nutter
certainly had disappeared, and there was an uneasy feeling about him.
The sinister terms on which he and Sturk had stood were quite well
known, and though nobody spoke out, every one knew pretty well what his
neighbour was thinking of.

Our blooming friend, the handsome and stalworth Magnolia, having got a
confidential hint from agitated Mrs. Mack, trudged up to the mills, in a
fine frenzy, vowing vengeance on Mary Matchwell, for she liked poor
Sally Nutter well. And when, with all her roses in her cheeks, and her
saucy black eyes flashing vain lightnings across the room in pursuit of
the vanished woman in sable, the Amazon with black hair and slender
waist comforted and pitied poor Sally, and anathematised her cowardly
foe, it must be confessed sh