one is called love, in
the other is called reverence; and what in the wife is obedience, the
same in the man is duty. He provides, and she dispenses; he gives
commandments, and she rules by them; he rules her by authority, and
she rules him by love; she ought by all means to please him, and he
must by no means displease her."

STORY TELLING.

A favorite evening pastime at the Hall, and one which the worthy
Squire is fond of promoting, is story telling, "a good, old-fashioned
fire-side amusement," as he terms it. Indeed, I believe he promotes
it, chiefly, because it was one of the choice recreations in those
days of yore, when ladies and gentlemen were not much in the habit of
reading. Be this as it may, he will often, at supper-table, when
conversation flags, call on some one or other of the company for a
story, as it was formerly the custom to call for a song; and it is
edifying to see the exemplary patience, and even satisfaction, with
which the good old gentleman will sit and listen to some hackneyed
tale that he has heard for at least a hundred times.

In this way, one evening, the current of anecdotes and stories ran
upon mysterious personages that have figured at different times, and
filled the world with doubt and conjecture; such as the Wandering Jew,
the Man with the Iron Mask, who tormented the curiosity of all Europe;
the Invisible Girl, and last, though not least, the Pig-faced Lady.

At length, one of the company was called upon that had the most
unpromising physiognomy for a story teller, that ever I had seen. He
was a thin, pale, weazen-faced man, extremely nervous, that had sat at
one corner of the table, shrunk up, as it were, into himself, and
almost swallowed up in the cape of his coat, as a turtle in its shell.

The very demand seemed to throw him into a nervous agitation; yet he
did not refuse. He emerged his head out of his shell, made a few odd
grimaces and gesticulations, before he could get his muscles into
order, or his voice under command, and then offered to give some
account of a mysterious personage that he had recently encountered in
the course of his travels, and one whom he thought fully entitled to
being classed with the Man with the Iron Mask.

I was so much struck with his extraordinary narrative, that I have
written it out to the best of my recollection, for the amusement of
the reader. I think it has in it all the elements of that mysterious
and romantic narrative, s