e no suspicion in her mind, that the lover always appeared uneasy
when she expressed her anxiety on the subject, or her desire to hear
from her friend.

The wedding-day arrived; and the bride groom, manifesting a most
flattering impatience for the performance of the ceremony, came early to
the house of his affianced, to accompany the family party to the
magistrates, where the contract was to be drawn up. But even on that
momentous day Madame L---- adhered to her custom of waiting for the
post, to the evident rage and even agonized impatience of her destined
son-in-law, who urged her with passionate eagerness to proceed at once
to the magistrates. The delay proved most serviceable. The post came in
due time, and brought a letter from Marseilles. The writer, struck by
some slight personal peculiarities which her friend had described, had
fancied it possible that the _promesso sposo_ was no other than _an
escaped galley-slave_, with whom, before his condemnation for a heinous
crime, her family had been intimate. She had therefore, in some alarm,
caused her husband to make inquiries into the matter, and a sufficient
mass of evidence had been collected to justify her suspicion, and cause
her to urge inquiry and delay on the part of M. and Madame L----. She
suggested, moreover, that the truth might be easily discovered by a
personal examination of the gentleman, who, if the same individual, had
been branded on the right shoulder. The surprise, horror, and alarm of
Madame L---- may be imagined. The contents of the letter were of course
instantly communicated by her to her husband, and by him privately to
the bridegroom, whom he requested to satisfy his wife's fears by showing
him his right shoulder. The request was indignantly refused as an insult
to his honor; and convinced of the fact by the agitation and dismay of
the culprit, as well as by this refusal, the gentleman gave him at once
into the hands of the police, who had no difficulty in finding the fatal
mark of infamy. He was, indeed, an escaped convict, and the wealth with
which he had dazzled the good provincials was the spoil of a recent
robbery, undertaken by himself and some Parisian accomplices, and so
cleverly managed as to have set at naught hitherto the best efforts of
the police for its discovery.

We may be sure Madame L---- congratulated herself highly on having, as
if by a providential instinct, "waited for the post."

CHEERFUL VIEWS OF HUMAN NATURE.