next day, Mrs. Bluebeard thought of sending a friendly message to
Dr. Sly's, asking for news of the health of his nephew; but, as she was
giving her orders on that subject to John Thomas the footman, it
happened that the captain arrived, and so Thomas was sent down stairs
again. And the captain looked so delightfully interesting with his arm
in a sling, and his beautiful black whiskers curling round a face which
was paler than usual, that, at the end of two hours, the widow forgot
the message altogether, and, indeed, I believe, asked the captain
whether he would not stop and dine. Ensign Trippet came, too, and the
party was very pleasant; and the military gentlemen laughed hugely at
the idea of the lawyer having been cut off the bedpost by the black
servant, and were so witty on the subject, that the widow ended by half
believing that the bedpost and hanging scheme on the part of Mr. Sly was
only a feint,--a trick to win her heart. Though this, to be sure, was
not agreed to by the lady without a pang, for, _entre nous_, to hang
one's self for a lady is no small compliment to her attractions, and,
perhaps, Mrs. Bluebeard was rather disappointed at the notion that the
hanging was not a _bona fide_ strangulation.

However, presently her nerves were excited again; and she was consoled
or horrified, as the case may be (the reader must settle the point
according to his ideas and knowledge of womankind),--she was at any rate
dreadfully excited by the receipt of a billet in the well-known
clerk-like hand of Mr. Sly. It ran thus:--

"I saw you through your dining-room windows. You were
hob-nobbing with Captain Blackbeard. You looked rosy and well.
You smiled. You drank off the champagne at a single draught.

"I can bear it no more. Live on, smile on, and be happy. My
ghost shall repine, perhaps, at your happiness with
another,--but in life I should go mad were I to witness it.

"It is best that I should be gone.

"When you receive this, tell my uncle to drag the fish-pond at
the end of Bachelor's Acre. His black servant Sambo accompanies
me, it is true. But Sambo shall perish with me should his
obstinacy venture to restrain me from my purpose. I know the
poor fellow's honesty well, but I also know my own despair.

"Sambo will leave a wife and seven children. Be kind to those
orphan mulattoes for the sake of

"FREDERICK."

The widow gave a dreadful shriek, a