w kitchen
utensils, which she supposed to be eggs, and began to incubate. She
found the process of incubation, in her case, a very slow one; and
her friends, fearing for her health, called in a doctor. He
endeavored to reason with her, but she only replied to his
philosophy by stretching out her neck, which she seemed to think was
a remarkably long one, and hissing. The old lady had a set of
gilt-band china cups and saucers, which, in her eyes, had been a
sort of household gods. The knowledge of the fact coming to the ears
of the physician, he advised her friends to break the precious
treasures, one after another, before her eyes. The plan worked
admirably. She immediately left her nest, and ran to the rescue of
the china, and the excitement brought her back to her sense of the
proprieties of womanhood.

Another old lady, who also resided in a neighboring town, fancied
she had become a veritable teapot. She used to silence those who
attempted to reason with her by the luminous argument, "See, here
(crooking one arm at her side) is the handle, and there (thrusting
upward her other arm) is the spout!" What could be more convincing
than that?

Another lady, whose faculties had begun to decline, thought her toes
were made of glass; and a comical figure she cut when she went
abroad, picking up and putting down her feet with the greatest
caution, lest she should injure her precious toes.

Now these cases provoke a smile; but, had these ancient damsels
fancied that they were bewitched, or that they were haunted, or that
they held communion with the spirits of the invisible world, instead
of exciting laughter and pity, they would have occasioned no small
excitement among the simple-minded people of the neighborhood in
which each resided.

A young Scottish farmer, having been to a fair, was riding homeward
on horseback one evening over a lonely road.

He had been drinking rather freely at the fair, according to the
custom, and his head was far from steady, and his conscience far
from easy.

It was moonlight, and he began to reflect what a dreadful thing it
would be to meet a ghost. His fears caused him to look very
carefully about him. As he was approaching the old church in
Teviotdale, he saw a figure in white standing on the wall of the
churchyard, by the highway.

The sight gave him a start, but he continued his journey, hoping
that i