l able to fish for itself, and is an ill-natured bird
after all, that pecks the hand of his mistress, and, for all her
kindness to him, will not think of Bessy More."

How apt alle are to abuse unlimited license? Yet 'twas good counsel.

PHANTOMS AND REALITIES.--AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.[10]

PART THE THIRD--NIGHT.

I.

The whole color of my life was changed in a single night. Years of
excitement could not have wrought such a miracle upon me. The next day,
I seemed to have passed out of my former self into a new individual and
a new state of existence. I was no longer alone! I was no longer
drifting about, aimless and dreamy. There was work for me to do, and the
interest I had in it was vivid and engrossing.

What had become of the dwarf? Not a trace of him was to be found. I
examined the grass, and fancied I could detect two or three dark spots;
but there had been heavy showers in the night, and as the mould had been
thrown up here and there, discoloring the verdure, I could not determine
whether these spots were blood-marks, as I feared, or the mere beating
of rain and mire. But I did not trouble myself any further. Our
persecutor was gone. That was all we cared to be assured of; and our
next step was to escape from a place in which it was no longer safe for
us to remain.

That mournful voice was still in my ears; but the consciousness of
danger, the sense of triumph, the selfishness of happiness, out-clamored
it! Destined as it was to return in after-years in tones that always
seemed more piteous and more laden with pain and bitterness as that
miserable night receded further and further back into the darkness of
the past, it came upon me the next morning with something of a feeling
of asperity and antagonism. There was yet the risk that the dwarf might
re-appear, and as every thing concerning his rights and his probable
mode of proceeding was vague and uncertain, we were much more occupied
in thinking of our own security, than of his sufferings or wrongs.
Indeed, under the influence of the feelings that actuated us then, we
were strongly impressed with the conviction that the wrongs were all on
our side, and that whatever he might have suffered, was nothing more
than a measure of just punishment for having inflicted them.

People who do a wrong seldom have any difficulty in finding out excuses
and justifications for it. We certainly had abundant ground to complain
of the conduct of poor Mephistophiles. We we