“But what became of Herbert?” inquired one of the ladies.

“Singularly enough, he escaped all the dangers he so recklessly braved, and all the bad speculations he embarked in turned out good.  Somehow or other, the moment he took part in a desperate scheme it became profitable.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Sophia, “his victim, like a guardian angel, continued to watch over him.”

“When the cholera appeared in England, he was sure to be found where the cases were most numerous.  He followed up the pest with so much pertinacity and publicity, that it was no unusual thing to find it announced in the newspapers that Philipson and the cholera had arrived in such and such a town.”

“The bane and the antidote,” remarked Jack.

“If Cecilia had been one of those women who delight in horse-racing, fox-hunting, opera-boxes, and public executions, she would have been highly amused to see her old friend’s name constantly turning up under such extraordinary circumstances.”

“Is she not dead, then?” inquired Sophia, with astonishment,

“It appears that her wounds were not mortal,” quietly replied her mother.

“Besides,” observed Jack, “there are human frames so constituted that they can bear an immense amount of cutting and slashing.  So in the case of animals; there, for instance, is the fresh-water polypus—­if you cut this creature lengthwise straight through the middle, a right side will grow on the one half and a left side on the other, so that there will be two polypi instead of one.  The same thing occurs if you cut one through the middle crosswise, a head grows on the one half and a tail on the other, so that you have two entire polypi either way.”

“And you may add,” observed Ernest, “since so interesting a subject is on the tapis, that if two of these polypi happen to quarrel over their prey, the largest generally swallows the smallest, in order to get it out of the way; and the latter, with the exception of being a little cramped for space, is not in the slightest degree injured by the operation.”

“And does that state of matters continue any length of time?”

“The polypus that is inside the other may probably get tired of confinement, in which case it makes its exit by the same route it entered; but, if too lazy to do that, it makes a hole in the body of its antagonist and gets out that way.  But, what is most curious of all, these processes do not appear to put either of the creatures to the slightest inconvenience.”

“I am quite at a loss to make you all out,” said Sophia.

“Well, my child,” replied her mother, “you should not close up your ears in the middle of a story.”

“Cecilia, or rather Mrs. Lindsey, however,” continued Wolston, “was a pious, painstaking, simple-minded woman, who devoted her whole attention to her domestic duties.  Notwithstanding her fortune, she did not neglect the humblest affairs of the household, and thought only of making her husband pleased with his home.  When she was told of the vagaries of Philipson, she prayed in private that he might be led from his evil ways, and could not help thanking Providence that she was not the wife of such a dreadful scapegrace.”