s, and also a green silk calash dangling down her back by
the strings. In my terror and turmoil of mind I could imagine nothing
less than that the Old Nick, at the moment of our overturn, had
annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats. This idea seemed
the most probable, since I could nowhere perceive Mrs. Bullfrog alive,
nor, though I looked very sharply about the coach, could I detect any
traces of that beloved woman's dead body. There would have been a
comfort in giving her Christian burial.

"Come, sir, bestir yourself! Help this rascal to set up the coach,"
said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three
countrymen at a distance, "Here, you fellows, ain't you ashamed to
stand off when a poor woman is in distress?"

The countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives, came running at
full speed, and laid hold of the topsy-turvy coach. I, also, though a
small-sized man, went to work like a son of Anak. The coachman, too,
with the blood still streaming from his nose, tugged and toiled most
manfully, dreading, doubtless, that the next blow might break his head.
And yet, bemauled as the poor fellow had been, he seemed to glance at
me with an eye of pity, as if my case were more deplorable than his.
But I cherished a hope that all would turn out a dream, and seized the
opportunity, as we raised the coach, to jam two of my fingers under the
wheel, trusting that the pain would awaken me.

"Why, here we are, all to rights again!" exclaimed a sweet voice
behind. "Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. My dear Mr.
Bullfrog, how you perspire! Do let me wipe your face. Don't take this
little accident too much to heart, good driver. We ought to be thankful
that none of our necks are broken."

"We might have spared one neck out of the three," muttered the driver,
rubbing his ear and pulling his nose, to ascertain whether he had been
cuffed or not. "Why, the woman's a witch!"

I fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is positively a fact,
that there stood Mrs. Bullfrog, with her glossy ringlets curling on her
brow, and two rows of orient pearls gleaming between her parted lips,
which wore a most angelic smile. She had regained her riding habit and
calash from the grisly phantom, and was, in all respects, the lovely
woman who had been sitting by my side at the instant of our overturn.
How she had happened to disappear, and who had supplied her place, and
whence she did now return, were problem