ested all night, and that he
could scarcely walk from the effects of his exhaustion. He returned
immediately home and told his wife all that had occurred; and though,
like some of the neighbors, she distrusted the tale, yet she never
intimated her doubts to Black Hal himself. The alley-keeper assured me
in a whisper, one day, that upon the very night fixed on by Hal for the
adventure, he was beastly drunk, and had been engaged in a fight with
one of his boon companions, who gave him a black eye and a bloody nose.
But the alley-keeper was always jealous of Black Hal's superiority in
story telling; besides, he often drank too much himself, and I suspect
he originated the report he related to me in a fit of wounded pride, or
drunken braggadocio. One thing is certain, he never ventured to repeat
the story in the presence of Black Hal himself.

# # # # #

In spite of the attention I endeavored to bestow on the marvelous
history of Black Hal and his grim companion, my mind occasionally
wandered far away, and could only find repose in communing with her who
I now discovered for the first time held in her own hands the thread of
my destiny. Lucy was not blind to these fits of abstraction, and
whenever they gained entire control of my attention, she would pause,
lay down the manuscript, and threaten most seriously to discontinue the
perusal, unless I proved a better listener. I ask no man's pardon for
declaring that my sister was an excellent reader. Most brothers, perhaps
think the same of most sisters; but there _was_ a charm in Lucy's accent
and a distinctness in her enunciation I have never heard excelled. Owing
to these qualities, as much, perhaps, as to the strangeness of the
story, I became interested in the fate of the drunken gambler, and when
Lucy concluded, I was ready to exclaim, "And pray where is Black Hal
now?"

My thoughts took another direction, however, and I impatiently demanded
whether or not the sample story had been imitated. A guilty blush
assured me quite as satisfactorily as words could have done, that Miss
Lucy had herself made an attempt, and I therefore insisted that as she
had whetted and excited the appetite, it would be highly
unfraternal--(particularly in my present very precarious
condition)--that parenthesis settled the matter--to deny me the means of
satisfying it.

"But you'll laugh at me," timidly whispered my sister.

"Of course I shall," said I, "if your