Then came triumph instead of dread, and scorn took the place of fear.  There arose a succession of shouts and cheers, laughter and jeers.  They patted their knees and shuffled their feet and wagged their heads in derision.

“Hyar! hyar! old gal!  Done burnt up, is you?  Take keer whar you lay yo’ aigs arfer dis!” advised William Wirt in a loud voice.—­“Go ’long, pizen sass!” said Martha.  “You done lay yo’ las’ aig, you is!”—­“Hooray tag-rag!” shouted Chesterfield.—­“Histe yo’ heels, ole Mrs. Satan,” cried one.—­“You ain’t no better’n a free nigger!” said another.—­“Yo’ wheel done skotch for good, ole skeer-face! hyar! hyar!  You better not come foolin’ ‘long o’ Mas’ Ned’s niggers no mo’!”

The next night was a gala one, and a merrier set of negroes never sang at a corn-shucking, nor did a jollier leader than Wash ever tread the pile, while Mercy sat on a throne of shucks receiving Sambo’s homage, and, unmolested by fear, coyly held a corncob between her teeth as she hung her head and bashfully consented that he should come next day to “ax Mas’ Ned de liberty of de plantashun.”

“But, Edward,” said I, “why did those three powders turn black?”

“Because they were calomel, my dear, and it was lime-water that was poured on them,” said Mr. Smith.

“Well, but why did not the others turn black too?”

“Because the others were tartarized antimony.”

“Where did you get what was in the plates, that made the lights, you know?”

“Rutherford had the material.  He is going to settle in a small country town, so he provided himself with all sorts of drugs and chemicals before he left Philadelphia.”

“But, Edward,” persisted I, putting my hand over his book to make him stop reading, “how came those things where they were found? and the balloon to ascend just at the proper moment? and who or what was it screaming so?  Neither you nor Dr. Rutherford had left the yard except to go into the house.”

“No, my dear; but you remember Dick Kirby came over just after dinner, and he would not ask any better fun than to fix all that.”

“Humph!” said I, “men are not so stupid, after all.”

Edward looked more amused than flattered, which shows how conceited men are.

JENNIE WOODVILLE.

ON THE STUDY OF SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS.

The last thing which the student learns, the last thing which the world, that universal student, comprehends, is how to study.  It is only after our little store of facts has been laboriously accumulated, after we have tried path after path that promised to take us by an easy way up the Hill Difficulty, and have abandoned each in turn,—­it is only when we have attained a point somewhere near the top, that we can look down and see the way we should have come, the one road that avoided unnecessary steepness and needless windings, and led by the quickest and easiest