“And the gout that was creeping higher and higher every day,” exclaimed Monsieur Ramin, in a voice of anguish.

“It went lower and lower, till it disappeared altogether,” composedly replied Bonelle.

“And your asthma—­”

“The asthma remains, but asthmatic people are proverbially long-lived.  It is, I have been told, the only complaint that Methusalah was troubled with.”  With this Bonelle opened his door, shut it, and disappeared.

Ramin was transfixed on the stairs; petrified with intense disappointment, and a powerful sense of having been duped.  When he was discovered, he stared vacantly, and raved about an Excellent Opportunity of taking his revenge.

The wonderful cure was the talk of the neighborhood, whenever Monsieur Bonelle appeared in the streets, jauntily flourishing his cane.  In the first frenzy of his despair, Ramin refused to pay; he accused every one of having been in a plot to deceive him; he turned off Catharine and expelled his porter:  he publicly accused the lawyer and priest of conspiracy; brought an action against the doctor and lost it.  He had another brought against him for violently assaulting Marguerite, in which he was cast in heavy damages.  Monsieur Bonelle did not trouble himself with useless remonstrances, but when his annuity was refused, employed such good legal arguments, as the exasperated mercer could not possibly resist.

Ten years have elapsed, and MM.  Ramin and Bonelle still live on.  For a house which would have been dear at fifty thousand francs, the draper has already handed over seventy thousand.

The once red-faced, jovial Ramin is now a pale haggard man, of sour temper and aspect.  To add to his anguish he sees the old man thrive on that money which it breaks his heart to give.  Old Marguerite takes a malicious pleasure in giving him an exact account of their good cheer, and in asking him if he does not think Monsieur looks better and better every day.  Of one part of this torment Ramin might get rid, by giving his old master notice to quit, and no longer having him in his house.  But this he cannot do; he has a secret fear that Bonelle would take some Excellent Opportunity of dying without his knowledge, and giving some other person an Excellent Opportunity of persecuting him, and receiving the money in his stead.

The last accounts of the victim of Excellent Opportunities represent him as being gradually worn down with disappointment.  There seems every probability of his being the first to leave the world; for Bonelle is heartier than ever.

* * * * *

[FROM HOUSEHOLD WORDS.]

THE OLD CHURCHWARD TREE.

A PROSE POEM.

There is an old yew tree which stands by the wall in a dark quiet corner of the churchyard.

And a child was at play beneath its wide-spreading branches, one fine day in the early spring.  He had his lap full of flowers, which the fields and lanes had supplied him with, and he was humming a tune to himself as he wove them into garlands.