“Ignoble conclusion to a tender affair; but not so devoid of tragicality as would seem. Infuriated at the desertion of this modern Joseph, Louise, the lorn, avenged the slight offered her charms by declaring to her youngest brother, the only one who resided in the same city with herself, that Joseph had made dishonorable proposals to her--a proceeding which demonstrates that the feminine character has withstood the proverbially changing effects of time from age to age. My narrative is but a later and a Gentile version of the Jewish novelette to which I have referred. The role of Potiphar was cast for the unsophisticated brother, who, being unable to immure the unimpressible Joseph in the Tombs, attempted the only means of redress that remained to him, to wit: Personal chastisement. “And here,” continued the narrator, yet more slowly, “I find myself perplexed by the discrepancy between the statement I have had to-day and one of this section of the story furnished me several years since. In the latter the indignant fraternal relative flogged the would-be betrayer within a quarter of an inch of his life. The other account reverses the position of the parties, and makes Joseph the incorruptible also the invincible. However this may have been, the adventure seems to have quenched the loving Louise's brilliancy for a season. We hear no more of her until after her father's decease, when she re-enters the lists of Cupid in another State, as the blushing and still beautiful virgin-betrothed of a man of birth and means, who woos and weds her under her maiden cognomen--the entire family, including the valiant brother who figured as whippee or whipper, in the castigation exploit--being accomplices in the righteous fraud. I might, did I not fear being prolix, tell of sundry side-issues growing out of the main stalk of this plot, such as the ingenious manoeuvres by which the promising couple of conspirators averted, upon the eve of the sister's bridal, the threatened expose of their machinations to entrap the wealthy lover. Suffice it to say that the duped husband (by brevet) lived for a decade and a half in the placid enjoyment of the ignorance which my sagacious sister here is disposed to confound with rational bliss--nor is he quite sure, to this day, whether spouse No. 1 of the partner of his bosom still lives, or by clearance in what court of infamy or justice she managed to shuffle off her real name, and win a right to resume the title of spinster.” He lighted a fresh cigar, and for the space of perhaps a minute, a dead and ominous silence prevailed. Mabel, pallid and faint at heart, could not take her eyes from his countenance, with its cruel smile, frozen, shallow eyes, and the deep white dints coming and going in his nostrils. He had judged without partiality. He would condemn without mercy. He would punish without remorse.