de L----; 'kill
_me_!'

I added my cries to theirs. I shouted, I shook the grating. I tried to
scale the wall, when suddenly, urged on by despair, bewildered,
distracted, Madame de L---- threw herself from the window and fell between
her lover and her husband. The latter, completely beside himself with
passion, directed his sword toward her. But Ernest turned it aside, and in
his turn casting off all restraint, exclaimed with vehemence: 'Madman!
would you kill her? Well, then--defend yourself!' And immediately he
commenced a violent assault upon his antagonist.

I could do nothing to separate them; neither could Madame de L----. The
unfortunate woman had broken a limb in the fall, and lay groaning upon the
pavement. It was a dreadful combat. Nothing can express the violent terror
which seized me. Already the blood of the two cousins began to flow, which
only served to increase their rage. I had succeeded with some difficulty
in climbing to the top of the wall, and was about to leap into the court,
when I perceived some of our friends approaching. Ganguernet was at their
head; he drew near, calling to me:

'Halloo! what's this? Why, you bawl like a man getting flayed; we heard
you a quarter of a league off. What the devil is the matter?'

At the sight of this detested wretch, I rushed upon him, seized him by the
throat, and forcing him violently against the grating, I cried to him in
my turn: 'Look there, miserable jester!--'a capital joke!' is it not?--a
'capital joke!''

Monsieur de L----, pierced through the heart by a plunge of his
antagonist's sword, was lying by the side of his wife.

Ernest has left France to die in a foreign land. Madame de L---- committed
suicide the day after this horrible duel.

'A CAPITAL JOKE!'

APOSTROPHE TO AN OLD HAT.

BY JOHN G. SAXE.

COME forth, Old Hat! I'll pluck thee from the ditch,
Where thou hadst well nigh found a grave, 'unwept,
Unhonor'd and unsung.' I'll rescue thee
A moment longer from oblivion,
Albeit thou art old, bereaved of rim,
And like a prince dethroned, no more canst boast
A crown!
Would thou couldst talk! I'd e'en consent
That thou shouldst steal my prating grandame's tongue,
And so procure her silence and thy history.

Time-worn, adust, degraded as thou art,
Thine ancient quality doth still appear;
And this fine web, malgre thy present mien,
(A batter'd cylinder of dingy brown,)
Proclaims that once,