urn up in the course of
the next twenty-four hours, my friends would have the melancholy
satisfaction of depositing a broken heart (which, on the principle of
the Kilkenny cats, was all I expected would remain of me by that time)
in an early grave. Hereabouts my feelings becoming too many for me
at the thought of my own funeral, I fairly gave up the struggle, and,
bursting into a flood of tears, cried myself to sleep, like a child.

CHAPTER II -- LOSS AND GAIN

"And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw
rheumatic day?"

"His thefts were too open; his filching was like an
unskilful singer, he kept not time.... Convey, the wise
it call. 'Steal!' foh! a fico for the phrase!"--
_Shakspeare._

"From _Greenland's_ icy mountains."--_Heber_.

AMONGST the minor phenomena which are hourly occurring in the details
of everyday life, although we are seldom sufficiently close observers to
perceive them, there is none more remarkable than the change wrought in
our feelings and ideas by a good night's rest; and never was this change
more strikingly exemplified than on the present occasion. I had fallen
asleep in the act of performing the character of chief-mourner at my own
funeral, and I awoke ~13~~in the highest possible health and spirits,
with a strong determination never to "say die" under any conceivable
aspect affairs might assume. "What in the world," said I to myself, as I
sprang out of bed, and began to dress,--"What in the world was there for
me to make myself so miserable about last night? Suppose Cumberland and
Lawless should laugh at, and tease me a little at first, what does it
signify? I must take it in good part as long as I can, and if that does
not do I must speak seriously to them--tell them they really annoy me
and make me uncomfortable, and then, of course, they will leave off. As
to Coleman, I am certain------Well, it's very odd!"--this last remark
was elicited by the fact that a search I had been making for some
minutes, in every place possible and impossible, for that indispensable
article of male attire, my trousers, had proved wholly ineffectual,
although I had a distinct recollection of having placed them carefully
on a chair by my bedside the previous night. There, however, they
certainly were not now, nor, as far as I could discover, anywhere else
in the room. Under these circumstances, ringing the bell for Thomas
seemed advisable, as it occurred