My husband had a remarkably sweet-toned flute, and this flute Tom regarded with a species of idolatry.

“I break the Tenth Commandment, Moodie, whenever I hear you play upon that flute.  Take care of your black wife,” (a name he had bestowed upon the coveted treasure), “or I shall certainly run off with her.”

“I am half afraid of you, Tom.  I am sure if I were to die, and leave you my black wife as a legacy, you would be too much overjoyed to lament my death.”

Such was the strange, helpless, whimsical being who now contemplated an emigration to Canada.  How he succeeded in the speculation the sequel will show.

It was late in the evening before my husband and his friend Tom Wilson returned from Y—–.  I had provided a hot supper and a cup of coffee after their long walk, and they did ample justice to my care.

Tom was in unusually high spirits, and appeared wholly bent upon his Canadian expedition.

“Mr. C—–­ must have been very eloquent, Mr. Wilson,” said I, “to engage your attention for so many hours.”

“Perhaps he was,” returned Tom, after a pause of some minutes, during which he seemed to be groping for words in the salt-cellar, having deliberately turned out its contents upon the tablecloth.  “We were hungry after our long walk, and he gave us an excellent dinner.”

“But that had nothing to do with the substance of his lecture.”

“It was the substance, after all,” said Moodie, laughing; “and his audience seemed to think so, by the attention they paid to it during the discussion.  But, come, Wilson, give my wife some account of the intellectual part of the entertainment.”

“What!  I—­I—­I—­I give an account of the lecture?  Why, my dear fellow, I never listened to one word of it!”

“I thought you went to Y—–­ on purpose to obtain information on the subject of emigration to Canada?”

“Well, and so I did; but when the fellow pulled out his pamphlet, and said that it contained the substance of his lecture, and would only cost a shilling, I thought that it was better to secure the substance than endeavour to catch the shadow—­so I bought the book, and spared myself the pain of listening to the oratory of the writer.  Mrs. Moodie! he had a shocking delivery, a drawling, vulgar voice; and he spoke with such a nasal twang that I could not bear to look at him, or listen to him.  He made such grammatical blunders, that my sides ached with laughing at him.  Oh, I wish you could have seen the wretch!  But here is the document, written in the same style in which it was spoken.  Read it; you have a rich treat in store.”

I took the pamphlet, not a little amused at his description of Mr. C—–­, for whom I felt an uncharitable dislike.

“And how did you contrive to entertain yourself, Mr. Wilson, during his long address?”

“By thinking how many fools were collected together, to listen to one greater than the rest.  By the way, Moodie, did you notice farmer Flitch?”