likely,' said she; 'for I see so many,--my receptions, you know,
Louise, are always so crowded! But, dear me, what am I thinking of?
Where are you, my love?' and the steamer brought the skiff alongside.

"'Louise, and gentlemen,' then said my lady, with a magnificent
courtesy, the very wind of which I feared would blow him away,--but he
advanced triumphantly, bowing and smiling extravagantly,--'allow me the
happiness of presenting to you Mr. John Waldoborough, my husband.'

"How I refrained from shrieking and throwing myself on the floor, I
never well knew; for I declare to you, I was never so caught by surprise
and tickled through and through by any _denouement_ or situation, in or
off the stage! To think that pigmy, that wart, that little grimacing
monkey of a man, parchment-faced, antique,--a mere moneybag on two
sticks,--should be the husband of the great and glorious Madam
Waldoborough! His wondrous self-satisfaction was accounted for.
Moreover, I saw that Heaven's justice was done: Madam's husband had paid
for Madam's carriage!"

Here Herbert concluded his story. And it was time; for the day had
closed, as we walked up and down, and the sudden November night had come
on. Gas-light had replaced the light of the sun throughout the streets
of the city. The brilliant cressets of the Place de la Concorde flamed
like a constellation; and the Avenue des Champs Elysees, with its rows
of lamps, and the throngs of carriages, each bearing now its lighted
lantern, moving along that far-extending slope, looked like a new Milky
Way, fenced with lustrous stars, and swarming with meteoric fire-flies.

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

IV.

_Salem, August 22d, 1837._--A walk yesterday afternoon down to the
Juniper and Winter Island. Singular effect of partial sunshine, the sky
being broadly and heavily clouded, and land and sea, in consequence,
being generally overspread with a sombre gloom. But the sunshine,
somehow or other, found its way between the interstices of the clouds,
and illuminated some of the distant objects very vividly. The white
sails of a ship caught it, and gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull
being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels
too, so that they looked like heavenly-winged things just alighting on a
dismal world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack,
they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands are seen
in summer sun