“I hope I’m not depriving you of these, Wilks, my dear,” he said, when the party thus addressed almost threw himself upon his neck, saying, “Corry, my splendid, brave fellow, everything I have is at your absolute disposal, ‘supreme of heroes—­bravest, noblest, best!’” for he could not forget his Wordsworth.  Coristine wrote to the clerk of the municipality of Flanders, to know where Miss Jewplesshy or Do Please-us had a lot, and whether the taxes on it had been paid.  He directed him to answer to his office in Toronto, and also wrote to his junior, instructing him how to act upon this reply.  These letters being written and prepared for the post, he and the dominie read together out of the little prayer book, left the window open and the lamp burning, and went to bed.  Before they fell asleep, they heard the barking of a dog.  “It’s that poor brute, Muggins,” said Coristine; “I’ll go, and let him in, if that brute of a master of his won’t.”  So, in spite of Wilkinson’s remonstrances, he arose and descended the stairs to the bar-room.  Nobody was there but Timotheus sleeping in a back tilted chair.  He slipped quietly along in his bare feet, but Timotheus, though sleeping, was on guard.  The Crew’s brother awoke, soon as he tried the door, and in a moment, was on his back.  “It’s I, my good Timotheus,” said the lawyer, and at once the grip relaxed.  “I want to let that poor dog, Muggins, in.”  Then Timotheus unlocked the door, and Coristine whistled, and called “Hi Muggins, Muggins, Muggy, Mug, Mug, Mug, Mug!” when the mongrel came bounding in, with every expression of delight.  Coristine warmly thanked The Crew’s brother, pressed a dollar on his acceptance, and then retired to No. 6.  Muggins followed him, and lay down upon the rag carpet outside that apartment, to keep watch and ward for the rest of the night, entirely ignoring his owner, the Grinstun man.

There was a pail of swamp water in the middle of the room, at the bottom of which lay some little black things.  As this water became warm, these little fellows began to rise and become frolicksome.  Like minute porpoises or dolphins, they joined in the mazy dance, and rose higher and higher.  All night long, by the light of the kerosene lamp, they indulged in silent but unceasing hilarity.  The snores of the sleepers, the watchful dream-yaps of Muggins, did not affect them.  They were bound to have a good time, and they were having it.  Morning came, and the sun stole in through the window.  Then, the wiggler grew tired, and came, like many tired beings, to the top.  For a time he was quiescent, but soon the sun’s rays gave force to the inner impulse which “rent the veil of his old husk,” and transformed it into a canoe or raft, containing a draggle-tailed-looking creature with a big head and six staggery legs.  Poising itself upon the raft, the outcome of the wiggler sunned its crumplety wings, till “like gauze they grew,” and then all of it, a whole pailful of it, made for the