ike as Jephtha his rash vow: howbeit, soe
soone as she had left us, we turned it into a frolick, and sang Chevy
Chase from end to end, to beguile time; ne'erthelesse, the butter w'd
not come; soe then we grew sober, and, at y'e instance of sweete
Mercy, chaunted y'e 119th Psalme; and, by the time we had attayned to
"Lucerna pedibus," I hearde y'e buttermilk separating and splashing in
righte earneste. 'Twas neare midnighte, however; and Daisy had fallen
asleep on y'e dresser. Gillian will ne'er be convinced but that our
Latin brake the spell.

Erasmus went to Richmond this morning with Polus (for so he Latinizes
Reginald Pole, after his usual fashion), and some other of his friends.
On his return, he made us laugh at y'e following. They had clomb y'e
hill, and were admiring y'e prospect, when Pole, casting his eyes
aloft, and beginning to make sundrie gesticulations, exclaimed, "What is
it I beholde? May heaven avert y'e omen!" with such-like exclamations,
which raised y'e curiositie of alle. "Don't you beholde," cries he,
"that enormous dragon flying through y'e sky? his horns of fire? his
curly tail?"

"No," says Erasmus, "nothing like it. The sky is as cleare as unwritten
paper."

Howbeit, he continued to affirme and to stare, untill at lengthe, one
after another, by dint of strayning theire eyes and theire imaginations,
did admitt, first, that they saw something; nexte, that it mighte be a
dragon; and last, that it was. Of course, on theire passage homeward,
they c'd talk of little else--some made serious reflections; others,
philosophical! speculations; and Pole waggishly triumphed in having
beene y'e firste to discerne the spectacle.

"And you trulie believe there was a signe in y'e heavens?" we inquired
of Erasmus.

"What know I?" returned he, smiling; "you know, Constantine saw a cross.
Why shoulde Polus not see a dragon? We must judge by the event. Perhaps
its mission may be to fly away with _him_. He swore to y'e curly
tail."

How difficulte it is to discerne y'e supernatural from y'e
incredible! We laughe at Gillian's faith in our Latin; Erasmus laughs at
Polus his dragon. Have we a righte to believe noughte but what we can
see or prove? Nay, that will never doe. Father says a capacitie for
reasoning increaseth a capacitie for believing. He believes there is
such a thing as witchcraft, though not that poore olde Gammer Gurney is
a witch; he believes that saints can work miracles, though not in alle
y