"do you remember the night I frightened you
so and kissed you as you lay in a fainting-fit?"

"You always say you kissed me, but I don't believe it," returned that
dear woman whom I love, honor, and cherish. "Yes, I remember the night
well enough."

"Well, that poor Doctor Potter, who was my Mahomet on that occasion,
and led me to victory in your parlor, and was the indirect means of my
getting my houri,--I have heard from him. He is our next neighbor."

"Mercy on us, Frederic! I hope not! What mischief won't he do to people
who are so handy?"

"Don't be worried, my dear," said I. "I sha'n't go over to his religion
again,--unless, indeed, you should insist upon it. But here he is, and
still a supernaturalist. I am anxious to know just how mad he is. I
shall call on him in a day or two."

So I did. One of the three widows met me with a tearful countenance and
told me that Doctor Potter had disappeared. So he had. I think that he
was ashamed to meet me again, and therefore ran away. The widows thought
not. They came to the conclusion, that, like Enoch and Elijah before
him, he had been translated. They cried for him a good deal more than he
was worth, quarreled scandalously among themselves, sold their house at
a loss, and dispersed. I know nothing more of them. Neither do I know
anything further of my neighbor, the prophet.

* * * * *

THE PILOT'S STORY.

I.

It was a story the pilot told, with his back to his hearers,--
Keeping his hand on the wheel and his eye on the globe of the jack-staff,
Holding the boat to the shore and out of the sweep of the current,
Lightly turning aside for the heavy logs of the drift-wood,
Widely shunning the snags that made us sardonic obeisance.

II.

All the soft, damp air was full of delicate perfume
From the young willows in bloom on either bank of the river,--
Faint, delicious fragrance, trancing the indolent senses
In a luxurious dream of the river and land of the lotus.
Not yet out of the west the roses of sunset were withered;
In the deep blue above light clouds of gold and of crimson
Floated in slumber serene, and the restless river beneath them
Rushed away to the sea with a vision of rest in its bosom.
Far on the eastern shore lay dimly the swamps of the cypress;
Dimly before us the islands grew from the river's expanses,--
Beautiful, wood-grown isles,--with the gleam of the swart inundation
Seen