[_This suggestion being acted upon, the company settles into a solemn gloom, pending the return of the host with Widow Ellis. Every one knows the dinner will be spoiled, none being more acutely conscious of that fact than the hostess, and every one is nearly perishing with hunger. More grewsome and melancholy stories are told, but in a wavering and subdued manner, as if they are being offered as excuses for resisting the cravings of appetite, which are rapidly becoming insupportable. Young White is heard to mutter, with fresh suspicions of theological terms, that one might as well die of thirteen at table as of starvation, and that for his part he prefers the former method of extinction. The return of Mr. Thompson with the Widow Ellis awakens some feeble enthusiasm, but it is evident that nothing short of a substantial dinner can restore the spirits of the company._] _Mr. P._ Well, nephew, now I hope we may have some dinner. I, for one, am faint with hunger. _Mr. T._ Oh, immediately. Mrs. Brown, we-- [_At this juncture poor Mrs. Thompson, overcome with anxiety, fatigue, and hunger, produces a diversion by falling in a dead faint. The shrieks of Miss Maria Smith are re-enforced by those of other ladies of the company, and it is to be feared that Mr. Algernon White no longer enjoys the exclusive privilege of indulging in ecclesiastical references. The excitement usual upon such occasions reigns, and when at length Mrs. Thompson is restored to consciousness, but is found to be too ill to stand, and is borne off to her chamber, the company, once more reduced to thirteen, distributes itself in a stricken and overwhelmed state about the drawing-room, with the air of having ceased to struggle against an adverse fate._] _Widow E._ We are thirteen again, neighbor; and if you'll excuse me-- _Mr. P._ Thirteen or no thirteen, nephew, I'm going to have something to eat if it's in this house. [_He disappears toward the dining-room, and as the resolution of Widow Ellis seems to have solved once more the dreadful conundrum of the fated number, the company hastily follow, too nearly famished to notice that the lady does not carry out her apparent intention of returning home, so that after all they sit down thirteen at table._] Tale the Eighth. APRIL'S LADY. APRIL'S LADY. It was fortunate that when the editor of the "Dark Red" magazine first did me the honor to request a story from my pen, I had one ready for him, and one, moreover, with which I was so well satisfied. I had so long vainly desired to be really asked for a contribution, and thus raised from the numerous and indiscriminate company of scribblers who send hopeful manuscripts to the magazines, and in trembling uncertainty await the issue, that it is not strange my bosom swelled with gratified pride, and that I dispatched my copy with so perfect a sense of complacency that I almost seemed to condescend a little in letting the editor have it.