the news of the proposed marriage, but there being no such thing then as telegraphs or railroads, he started for home by means of post-horses as fast as they could carry him.  When he reached Howland’s Ferry, just before night, he learned that his wife was to be married that very evening.  “With increased speed he flew to Newport, but not until the wedding-guests had begun to assemble.  She was called by a servant into the kitchen, ’a person being there who wished to speak with her.’  A man in sailor’s habit advanced and informed her that her husband had arrived in Boston, and requested him to inform her that he was on his way to Newport.”  It does not appear that the hero of this romance made any attempt to find out if his wife had become more attached to his rival, with the purpose of remaining incognito should he find this to be the fact.  On the contrary, after being questioned very closely by her, he advanced toward her, “raised his cap, and pointing to a scar on his forehead, said, ’Do you recollect that scar?’” Whereupon she at once recognized him, though the romance is marred by the absence of the assurance that she “flew into his arms.”  This may be inferred, however, for the returned wanderer became the hero of the evening, entertaining the wedding-guests with an account of his adventures and sufferings among the pirates.

THE PALATINE LIGHT.

This phenomenon appeared off the northern coast of Block Island about 1720, and reappeared at irregular intervals down to the year 1832, since which it has not been seen.  A common impression of those seeing it for the first time was that it was a light on board of some ship, or a ship on fire when very bright.  Arnold, in his History of Rhode Island, gives an account of it, and also of the tradition which assigned to it a strange origin.  “This light,” he remarks, “has been the theme of much learned discussion within the present century, and, while the superstition connected with it is of course rejected, science has failed thus far in giving it a satisfactory explanation.”  Dr. Aaron C. Willey, a resident physician of Block Island, wrote a careful account of the phenomenon in 1811, which was published at the time in the Parthenon, whatever that may have been.  He says:  “Its appellation originated from that of a ship called the Palatine, which was designedly cast away at this place in the beginning of the last century, in order to conceal, as tradition reports, the inhuman treatment and murder of some of its unfortunate passengers.”  This was an emigrant ship bound from Holland to Pennsylvania.  Some seventeen of the survivors were landed on the island, but they all died except three.  One lady, it was said, having “much gold and silver plate on board,” refused to land.  The ship floated off the rocks, and soon after disappeared for ever.  Dr, Willey says he saw this light in February, 1810.  “It was twilight, and the light was then large