"I came into the library for a book; there was a rustle in the tapestry, and the ghost of the squire's ancestor stood before

"Oh, come, come, Clifton! you won't gammon me," interrupted Rupert Melvaine.

"Silence, young man!" said the squire, sternly; "I believe it, every word. Go on, Charley."

With a countenance solemn and sober as a judge, Clifton proceeded :

"He was a little elderly gentleman, just as the squire described him last night, and his nose was very red; moreover, his face was stern as the hinder part of a ship, and grave as a churchyard, or that liquid in which we float our roast beef. 'Youth,' he observed, "one of my descendants will choose a mate to. night.'

Everyone looked at Isabel, who hid her blushes behind Mantyle's broad shoulders.

"There are two suitors for her hand,' continued the ghost, ' and the name of one commences with B——””

"Sir!" interrupted Captain Brady, sternly.

"Captain Brady, I must request you to hear this singular history to its end in silence," quoth the squire, who was deeply interested.

The captain looked indignant, but Clifton went on as innocently as before:

"Is there any one in the house whose name begins with a B?' asked the ghost. Yes; Betty the housemaid,' I replied."

The unfortunate Elizabeth was carried out of the room in hysterics, and Clifton proceeded with his narration.

"Do not trifle with a spirit, youth: there is a military gentleman whose name commences with B, now in my great great great grandson's house.'

"Exactly three greats," put in Mr. Riverton, nodding approval.

"I object to military men,' said the ghost,' principally because my wife liked them; liked them to such an extent that I had to call to my assistance a class of my fellow-creatures whom above all others I adore. This benevolent person put a little medicine into a bottle of wine, and hey! presto! neither wife nor soldiers troubled me any longer. I turned monk in my latter days, and when my turn came, they said I was too bad to go up aloft, and too good to go down below; therefore I wander about the earth, warning people against military gentlemen. So if my beautiful descendant marry this man of swords and guns, my curse will be upon her; and her hair will turn green, and her face yellow, and her eyes goggled, and

her nose

like mine.

But if she Is-a-bell indeed, she will find

a man of drugs and lancets, and permit him to ring her at the altar'.

"That will do, Clifton," interrupted Mantyle.

Up to this point the squire had listened with profound attention, and a deep conviction that every word was true. Now he turned to Captain Brady.

"With regard to the subject upon which——”

But Charley was not going to be stopped.

"Well, squire," he continued, addressing himself to Mr. Riverton, who, when he found there yet remained more to be told was as attentive as ever, "that pun (as you might say), upset me; he did not deserve to be a ghost a moment after such a perpetration; so I pulled out my revolver, and gave him two chambers; but I might as well have fired into the air, for he strode right up to

me."

Every one was on tip-toe of expectation; you might have heard the proverbial 'pin drop.'

"He looked me full in the face," proceeded Charley, after pausing to enjoy the effect of his last sentence, and said very solemnly, Youth Is your mother fully aware of the fact of your beingOut.' Then he gave one awful screech, and just snuffed me out like a candle, for I remembered nothing until Mantyle put me in, by the rather incongruous method of throwing water upon me."

And so Charley Clifton's story ended in the complete mystification of the larger portion of his hearers.

And for the rest of that night, everybody, when he was not looking for the ghost, was regarding Charley as a hero, except Captain Brady, who, when he was not drowning memory,' looked upon him as a foe; and George Mantyle, who, when he was not kissing Isabel Riverton, regarded him as a friend; and such a friend as I wish you, dear reader, may never be without; for in him you will possess a jewel of which many a king would be proud, and which many, very many of your fellow-creatures will envy; for a true human friend is one of the greatest earthly blessings which your Maker can bestow upon you, and when you have found such a one, remember that Shakspeare says

"The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel."

W. DINSDALE.

THE REASON WHY.

You want to know why I love you, dear?
Well, indeed, I can scarcely tell :
Yet why do the song-birds love the Spring,
And the bees the heather-bell?

For the Summer days are the brightest, dear,
Though the birds then sing no song;
And the bees care naught for the gaudy flowers
That blossom the heather among.

But the Spring has a genial glow, dear,
That in Summer is quite unknown;
And the heather distils a nectar rare,
That is all and all its own.

And thus, and thus, it befalls, dear,
When I gaze in your eyes, and see
A warmth of love in their azure depths
That is all and all for me;

Though some may be counted fair, dear-
And fairer, perchance, than you-
I love you still, for in all the world
There throbbeth no heart so true-

No heart so true as your own, dear,
In the world beneath the sky-
And if you must know why I love you,
Well, that is the reason why.

W. T. GREENE.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN

MAGISTRATE.

THE SISTER SUTTEE.

THE Suttee was prohibited in India by Act XVII. of 1829. Previous to that time the burning of the living with the dead, of the widow with her husband, was an acknowledged institution of the country; and there are authentic accounts of several murders of this description during the earlier years of the English administration. So long as the rite was performed in accordance with the precepts of the Shástras, and under the personal supervision of a police officer, there was no regulation or rule of practice to witness against it. The case here recorded occurred in 1823. The police were not informed of it at the time, and it had not even the slender justification of being permissible by Hindu laws and customs. It, therefore, came under the cognisance of the criminal

courts.

"You are an enthusiast, Sitá," said Degumber Pauday to his daughter, who lay at his feet. "My life is very dreary now, and I have no patience to listen to your folly."

"Father, my wish must be gratified. not assist me, I must seek the aid of others. pared to mine ?"

Time presses: if you will
What is your grief com-

"But who will help thee, foolish girl ?" Who can help thee? Your wish is unholy; it has not the sanction of any law or custom known to us."

"It is not the less sacred to me, father, for that. My brother loved me; never brother loved sister more. He is now alone in the spirit land, and I must join him there, for I was his constant companion at home. 'It is not an unholy wish, father, but a sacred duty to me."

"His wife will follow him, Sitá. That is the custom of our people, and has been observed from the remotest ages. The law does not require a sister to join her brother. Urge me not, therefore, to what would be criminal in me to further."

"But what wife can love her husband so much as I have loved my brother? It is my love that is unpartable, and demands of me the sacrifice for which I am prepared. If you will not help me to burn myself on the pyre for him, I will put an end to my life with this poniard ;" and she showed her father a dagger which she had kept concealed with her.

Degumber answered her with a groan, and peremptorily desired her to give up the weapon. She did so, but said resolutely: "Armed or unarmed, my purpose holds."

Degumber Pauday was an inhabitant of Goruckpore, and his son Ram Logan had died at that place. The wife of Ram Logan was then at her father's house at Chupra, and the turban of the deceased was sent to her that she might burn herself to death with it. At Goruckpore the sister of the deceased, who was much attached to him, also wished to die, and refused to be dissuaded from her purpose. She was not allowed to share the same pyre with her brother's body, the priest interdicting it, as that privilege was only claimable by a wife. But she determined to burn herself separately, and would not listen to the remonstrances of either father, priest, or friends.

"You may do as you please, then," said Degumber Pauday, angrily; "only don't worry me in this way, for I cannot bear it." But Sitá refused a compromise, and continued to vex and abuse her father more and more day by day, and to imprecate curses on all who would not help her.

"The girl is mad," said the family priest gravely, "and will surely kill herself in some way or other. It almost seems that it would be best to comply with her wishes."

"If she is mad," said the father, "I shall keep her bound as a lunatic. But how can I help her to die? Neither conscience nor prudence will justify such a course, and the courts of the country are sure to pounce upon me if I attempt to assist her."

The girl, however, was so obstinate and annoying that the father, worried to death by her persistence, was at last obliged to give in.

"Are you certain, Sitá, that you are fully prepared for the death you seek? To be burnt to death is a fearful end."

"Yes, father, I am fully prepared for it. No death has any terrors for me."

The pile was accordingly got ready by the father, who also set fire to it, and Sitá ascended it resolutely without assistance, and was consumed to death without a groan.

The father was tried for murder, and confessed his part in the crime.

"Had you any accomplices ?"

"None."

The trial was searching; but there was not a shadow of proof of any violence or malice on the part of the prisoner. The sacrifice was entirely voluntary, and all Goruckpore testified that it was so.

also established that it was carried into effect against the express remonstrances of Degumber. He was, therefore, convicted only of aiding a suicide, and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.

"The punishment is much too severe for Degumber's offence," was the remark all over Goruckpore. They didn't understand how he was at all to blame.