rious chest. She unhesitatingly raised the lid; but let it fall again with great precipitation as with a loud growl a savage dog attempted to spring from within.

So-Sli ran, and the cover of the chest having fallen on the back of Bou-wou, such was the dog's name,-she was able to gain a few paces before he had struggled from it. He would, however, soon have made rags of her new garment in his customary search, had she not with great presence of mind seized Ho-Fi's bird of goodluck by the neck, and whisking it rapidly three times round, thrown it to her hungry pursuer. He jumped aside to snap at it, and So-Sli, reaching the door, closed it against him, and secured it with several bolts.

When Ho-Fi returned, So-Sli told him that a savage dog had got loose in the court, and that his bird of luck had vanished.

'As I looked in the cage,' she said, 'suddenly I beheld him wax paler and paler, till having become thinner than mist, he passed between the bars, and what became of him after I cannot at all tell.'

Naughty little So-Sli told a story in this.

Ho-Fi was inconsolable for the loss of his bird. 'Better,' said he, "to lose nine wives than to lose a bird of good-luck.' And inwardly he feared lest the bird of good-luck having thus vanished in the presence of So-Sli might indicate the calamity he most dreaded,—that he should lose no more wives.

In a few days, however, his wits were again at work. Finding that So-Sli's suspicions were awakened, he judged it best to send his dog back to the place in which he had been trained; and he would not try a fresh experiment with him.

Another week had passed; it was evening, and the shadows of the western hills were gradually extending eastward over the richly cultivated fields. This last fact I mention, not as necessary to the elucidation of my story, but merely because an erroneous opinion seems to have possessed the minds of many, that shadows are unknown in China. The artists of the celestial empire exhibit their hopeful character by omitting the dark side of every picture. They would make you believe that Peter Schlemil's friend had walked through the land, and bought shadow and shade, every inch of the commodity. Foreigners, however, have not discovered that nature, in this particular, has framed for China laws different from those in operation over other portions of the globe; but the Chinese seem really to be unaware that shadow exists among them; and in their writings and discourse, as in their pictures, always represent their country as an all-enlightened land.

It was evening; and the beautiful So-Sli was sitting in a verandah, very diligently engaged in embroidering a dress, and chewing betel, when Ho-Fi approached, and assuming an appearance of sudden alarm and solicitude, exclaimed,

'By the thumb-nails of Con-fut-tsee, you cannot be well, my sweetest So-Sli. I charge you by all that is most moral tell me what ails you? Your complexion is like silk, and you must needs be under the evil influence of the melancholic Saturn; thence cold has gained a predominancy over heat in your temperament, and dry

ness over moisture. Go, therefore, to your chamber; avoid all yellow objects, and also those of gloomy white; you had better indeed put out your lantern, and close your window, that you may see nothing but a lively black about you. I will go hence, lest the hue of my girdle exercise a malignant effect upon you; and if you will betake yourself to bed I will send hither a physician of great skill, who will feel your pulses, and determine from the stars what medicines you should

use.'

The Chinese possess many secrets of physical science quite unknown to the philosophers of Europe. Among others is the myste rious dependence of particular colours upon particular planets; yellow upon Saturn for example, and black upon Mercury. White is their mourning colour; and black, as its opposite, must needs, therefore, be regarded among them as having a particularly gay and agreeable character.

A Chinese physician is not content with feeling one pulse of his patient; he must feel many. From each he learns somewhat of the disease, and he needs no other indications to guide him. It is a simple plan, and removes most of the difficulties that beset the European doctor in the formation of his diagnosis; pulse with him is everything: like the Brahmin he lives upon pulse. He consults, indeed, the planets, as we did some century since; but in one thing he resembles our modern phar macopeists, that beyond all stars he believes in the healing virtues of Mercury.

So-Sli wondered what the solicitude of her husband might portend. Was Bou-wou awaiting her in her chamber, and preparing a dose of bark? 'You don't bite me so easily,' thought So-Sli; and she entreated Ho-Fi that if she should immediately betake herself to bed, he would retire to rest at the same time. He excused himself on the ground that he must forthwith call a physician, and though for a while she made some objections to this, having a great dis like to doctor's stuff and doctor's learning, which she classed together as stuff and nonsense, she gave in at last, as he seemed to wish it particularly; and she told him at the same time that if there was anything else he desired, she sincerely wished he might get it.

Ho-Fi went to seek the physician; and So-Sli, taking a lantern, and having glanced in a mirror, to assure herself of what all along she had strongly suspected, that she was not so yellow as silk, went to her chamber, and very cautiously opened the door, throwing in a bone before she would enter, to find if the coast were clear. A bone, do you note, is no such poor matter but that, if hungry, a dog will 'snap at it.'

No dog snapped at the bone, and So-Sli ventured into the chamber: she moved with great circumspection about it, lest some hidden wire should catch her sweet little hoof, and upset her; and she examined the room with the utmost care, to discover what danger might be concealed within it; for she had fully made up her mind that there

was some.

She examined the chimney; she pried in every corner ; she turned about the table and chairs; she looked in the oven under the bed. The oven under the bed? Yes, truly; the oven was under

the bed. So to place it is a common practice in the Chinese Empire, and unquestionably an acute; in one side of a chamber is an arched recess, in which is placed the bed on a raised platform, and beneath it the oven. What a very cosy thing upon a winter's night! The warming-pan as large as the mattress. You put your bread in the oven, and have a hot roll in bed. But perhaps this practice may have done something towards making the Chinese rather a crusty, people.

She detected no gunpowder-plot in the oven; no shell to put her in mind of her coffin. The Chinese don't understand much about shells. Perhaps the scientific expedition under Admiral Elliot may yet have occasion to give them some lessons in conchology.

So-Sli was not yet satisfied. 'What,' said she, 'an' if I find needles in my bed?' and the mere idea gave her a stitch in her side. She lifted the bed-clothes, but let them fall again much more quickly; she was frightened, but she did not shriek. She gave utterance to a little gasping cry, such as might proceed from a terrified 'sucking-dove ;' and she did not run away, for though she had arrived at womanhood, her feet were as those of an infant. However, she tottered back a few paces, and then paused to consider what she should do.

But what had she seen in the bed? Had any of you seen it, my fair readers, the apparition of the old gentleman's tail, to which it bore a very marked resemblance, could scarcely have frightened you more. It was a huge black adder. You must not, however, suppose that, though startled, our little celestial lady was scared at all in the same degree that you would have been; by reason that she had been on most familiar terms with many of his kin in the kitchen; he soon began, in her mind's eye, to assume an appearance by no means unpleasing: that ugly black cloak was loosened from about his throat, and stripped off; it rustled gradually to his tail, and revealed beneath a delicate white skin. He grew in grace as he lay coiled up in a little iron-cradle, that seemed made on purpose for him. This having been laid in a warm place, he got lively, and his antics and gesticulations became infinitely diverting,; but when at last he had exhausted himself with this amusement, he fell into a torpor, and being then plunged into a warm bath of milk and spices

So-Sli hobbled quietly out of the room; she called a female servant, and sent her into the court to bring a young rat from the coop; to its leg they tied a small stone, and put it in a large, long earthen pot with a small neck; and just peeping under the clothes of the bed to see whereabouts the adder lay, they thrust this in with the mouth towards him. They listened, and after a time fancied that they heard him glide into it, and this was confirmed by a little squeak from the rat; so, cautiously lifting the clothes, they suddenly raised the jar upon the end, and put a stopper over its mouth. The adder was in for a fix: 'I shall " go to pot," thought he; but it was no use to make a

coil about it.

So-Sli sat up to wait the return of her loving and liege lord, 'I shall stay by him a little yet,' she said; 'an adder shall not be our divider.'

Two or three hours elapsed ere his return: he had forgotten the physician.

As he entered he seemed startled at beholding her. My dearest So-Sli,' he said, 'how is it that you have not retired to bed, as I requested? Believe me you act most dangerously in neglecting my advice, and exposing yourself thus to the air whilst under the influence of these cold humours.'

'Had I gone to bed, as you bade me,' she answered, 'I should but have got from my cold humours into a very hot one; and it would not have been at all conducive to my comfort or my health. Whilst you were absent from me, how could I have rested? [ should have been haunted by dragons, and demons, and cockatrices. Besides, I expected to see the physician, and was not willing that he should visit me in my bed-chamber. How is it that he comes not

with you?'

'His own son is on the point of death,' replied Ho-Fi, and I could not induce him to leave his bedside; but he desired that you should not rise from your couch whilst the cold influence was upon you; and he bade me to spend the night in watching and fasting; and at midnight to gather certain simples on the hill without the city, from which to-morrow he will prepare your medicines. I conjure you, then, as you love my yellow girdle, to go to bed without more delay.'

So-Sli at last assented to go to bed alone; but she would not do so until he should have partaken with her of a soup which she said she had prepared for him with great care, feeling that it would be agreeable to him after being so long exposed to the damp of the night. To this Ho-Fi had, for his own part, no reasonable objection to make; but for her sake wished it had not been made, and earnestly advised her by no means to take any part of it. The night-air had given Ho-Fi an appetite.

So-Sli promised; they sat down on either side a small table. A lantern was placed upon it, and the soup was brought in in a covered bowl. This was put before Ho-Fi that he might help himself, and he had placed his hand upon the cover, when So-Sli accidentally knocked the lantern from the table, and the light was extinguished. She rose suddenly from her chair in great alarm, and in doing so upset the light table, and the soup-bowl was thrown into the lap of Ho-Fi. He endeavoured to catch his supper as it fell. Unhappy Ho-Fi! his supper caught him by the wrist, and made him roar with agony. So-Sli knew his partiality for viper-soup, but had forgotten to have the reptile cooked.

She had played him a worse trick than her country-woman DahLee-Lah, practised upon her lord and master. The celebrated SangSong-Dah-Lee-Lah once in joke cut off his pig-tail whilst he slept, and presenting it to him at dinner in an ewer, asked if he were fond of jugged hare.

But So-Sli did not escape with impunity. Ho-Fi chased her round the room, and driving her at last into a corner, belaboured her for some time in an unmerciful manner, till the pain of the bite in his wrist made him fall on the floor, and beat his head against it. Whilst he was so employed his wife stepped upon his shoulder, and jumping

over him, got clear out of the house. The fright she was in gave her power to run as never before her legs had carried her, and that, too, without crutches. Fright does not always thus assist us in getting out of a hobble.

When the first impetus infused by fear had abated, she assumed somewhat more of her ordinary walk, which was much such as that of a calf might be, if a calf should attempt to go on only its hind trotters. She was several times hailed by the watchmen as she passed through the streets, but they allowed her to proceed; and at last, sorely spent with the fatigue of her long and unsupported tottering, she reached her father's house.

Poo-Poo had already retired to rest. He was angry at being thus aroused, but his indignation was beyond all bounds when he heard his daughter's story. 'I will appeal,' he said, 'to Peking in this matter; and we will hang Ho-Fi in his yellow girdle.'

Ho-Fi, meanwhile, when the first paroxysms of pain had subsided, sent for a barber-surgeon, and had his wrist, which was swollen to the size of the calf of his leg, examined and dressed. Moreover, having no doubt heard of that ancient practice in chirurgery which cured the wound by anointing the weapon, he had the viper dressed also, and revenge furnished an excellent sauce, and greatly improved his supper.

Poo-Poo, according to promise, made his appeal to the Emperor. As Ho-Fi boasted his relationship to the imperial family, this was the properest course, though the local courts were not forbidden to exercise jurisdiction in similar cases. Commissioners were sent from Peking to investigate the affair.

Ho-Fi, and his wife, their domestics, Poo-Poo, and a few other parties, who were required as witnesses, were summoned before the tribunal. Some of the relatives of the Yellow Girdle's former wives also took care to be present in the court.

The case was fully examined. Minute evidence was entered into to prove that Ho-Fi had in various ways attempted the life of his lady; all the circumstances connected with their marriage were set forth by Poopoo; So-Sli gave her evidence with great perspicuity, and her statements respecting the poisoned tea and the fierce Bou-wou, as well as the viper in the bed, were corroborated by the testimony of the servants. Some amateur witnesses made it pretty apparent that Ho-Fi's former wives had all of them been Burked and Greenacred, and the judges and jury were fully satisfied of his guilt. The defence did not shake their confidence, though it made faults of less magnitude apparent in some other parties. The verdict of the court having been submitted to Peking, the following proclamation was in a few days received from the Emperor, the Son of Heaven, and Father of the Celestial Empire. It was addressed to all his subjects, that is to say, to his three hundred and sixty millions of child

ren:

'Pekin; the sixth month; the fourteenth day; the fifty-eighth year of the Emperor Ho-Ho.

Unless the laws be exercised even on the imperial kindred, they will not be obeyed.

'When the mulberry shall degenerate into the thorn, it is true that it should be rooted out.