been conducted in perfect safety, I cannot say; I only know that
she was gone a very long time. But when at last she made her
reappearance with one of those little Japanese baskets in her hand,
and beaming with smiles, I felt I owed her an everlasting debt of
gratitude. She did not ask me if there was any other article she
could have the pleasure of showing me; she had asked me that before
and she remembered that I was proof against her persuasiveness! The
fair creature simply made a movement towards the spiral staircase,
as I thought, to fetch down a witness to the important transaction,
until my eyes rested on some tissue paper. 'Pray don't stay to wrap
it up,' I exclaimed, 'my pockets are ample,' and my thanks were
profuse. Seizing the coveted treasure, I laid my twopence down on the
counter and walked straight forward in a contrary direction to that
by which I had entered, gladdened by the prospect that I was making
direct for the street. If anyone had arrested my progress for the
sake of further formalities, I should unquestionably have knocked
them down. But everyone must have seen the glare of defiant
desperation flashing from my restless eyes and no one dared to bar
my egress. As I emerged from that shop into Regent Street, I felt as
exhausted as if I had just bought a grand piano or a suite of
furniture. 'Really,' I said to my wife in conclusion, 'if I could
have foreseen all the trouble in store for me over buying this
little Japanese basket, price twopence, it would have been still
reposing with its companions in the corner of that magnificent shop
window in Regent Street.'"

She promised to prize it all the more on that account. And now, when
I look at that little Japanese basket, my mind wanders back to the
farthing's worth of pins I purchased in my old bachelor days.

SHAMUS O'BRIEN: A TALE OF '98.

BY J. SHERIDAN LE FANU.

Jist afther the war, in the year '98,
As soon as the boys wor all scattered and bate,
'Twas the custom, whenever a pisant was got,
To hang him by thrial--barrin' sich as was shot.--
There was trial by jury goin' on in the light,
And martial-law hangin' the lavins by night
It's them was hard times for an honest gossoon:
If he got past the judges--he'd meet a dragoon;
An' whether the sodgers or judges gev sintance,
The divil an hour they gev for repintance.
An' it's many's the boy that was then on his keepin',
Wid small share iv restin