tion.

"The mystery," continued Dashall, "of resisting the impression of
tire, certainly originates in the liquid by which your hand has been
protected."

"I shall answer your observation," said the Salamander, "by another
performance."

She then dipped her fingers into a pot of molten lead, and let fall
upon her tongue several drops of the metallic fluid, to the no small
amazement and terror of the company; and as if to remove the idea of
precautionary application, she after a lapse of five minutes, repeated
the same extraordinary exhibition, and finally immerged her naked feet
in the boiling material.

The inscrutable means by which the Salamander executed these feats with
the most complete success and safety, were not to be divulged; and as
neither of our respectable friends felt desirous of emulating the fair
exhibitant, they declined the importunity of further inquiry.

"This is, indeed," said Dashall, as they resumed their walk, "the age
of wonders:--here is a girl who can bear to gargle her mouth with melted
lead, put her delicate feet into the same scalding material, and pass
through her hands a flaming red-hot poker! I am inclined to believe,
that were the present an age of superstition, she might be burnt for a
witch, were she not happily incombustible. For my own part, I sincerely
hope that this pyrophorous prodigy will never think of quitting her own
country; and as I am a bachelor, I verily believe I should be tempted to
make her an offer of my hand, could I flatter myself with any chance
of raising aflame, or making a match with such uninflammable commodity.
Only conceive the luxury, when a man comes home fatigued, and in a hurry
for his tea, of having a wife who can instantly take out the heater
for ~~312~~~ the urn with her fingers,--stir the fire with ditto--snuff
candles with ditto--make a spit of her arm, or a toasting fork of her
thumb! What a saving, too, at the washing season, since she need only
hold her hand between the bars till it is red-hot, thrust it into a
box iron, and iron you off a dozen children's frocks, while an ordinary
laundress would be coddling the irons over the fire, spitting upon them,
and holding them to her cheek to ascertain the heat before she began to
work."

"And," observed the Squire, taking up his friend's vein of humour, "if
the young lady be as insensible to the flames of Cupid as she is to
those of Vulcan, she might still be highly useful in a national point of