Upon these testimonials, and a strong affidavit from Lizzy, that in every other earthly matter she was innocent of the slightest peccadillo, the Lily of Lanark was installed as mistress and governante of the Nursery. We were then in the days of teething, and sorely tormented with our gums, which neither for knob of poker, nor handle of kitchen-fork--the ancient Caledonian corals--would surrender their budding ornaments. We believe, therefore, that Lizzy Lindsay erred not materially from the path of truth when she signalized us as "the maist fractious bairn that ever broke a woman's heart." Night and day did we yell, with Satanic energy, from the excruciating molar pain, and little sympathy did our tears awaken in our pillow, as we lay in fevered anguish on the exuberant bosom of our guardian. Fortunately for us, in these days Daffy's Elixir was a thing unknown, else no doubt we should have received an early introduction to dram-drinking by means of the soft carminative. The fertile genius of Lizzy suggested a better spell for allaying our infant sorrows. Whenever we indulged in a more than ordinary implacable fit of screeching, she threatened us with the apparition of "the Boo-man," a hideous spectre which was then supposed to perambulate the nurseries in the shape of Napoleon-Bonaparte. In a very short while, no Saracen child ever became dumber when threatened by its mother with a visit from the Melech-Ric, than we did at the proposed coming of the dark and sanguinary phantom. For many years afterwards we believed as sincerely in the existence of this anthropophagus as in our own; and very nearly became a Bauldy for life, from having been surprised on one occasion, whilst surreptitiously investigating the contents of a jampot, by the descent of a climbing-boy into the nursery, and the terrors of his telegraphic boo! As we grew up, our nascent intellect received still more supernatural services from the legendary lore of Lizzy. She taught us the occult and mysterious meaning of those singular soot-flakes which wave upon the ribs of a remarkably ill-pokered fire--the dark significance which may be drawn from the spluttering and cabbaging of a candle--and the misfortunes sure to follow the mismanagement of the sacred salt. Often, too, her talk was of the boding death-watch--the owl which flapped its wings at the window of the dying--and the White Dove that flitted noiselessly from the room at the fearful, and then to us incomprehensible moment of dissolution. As Hallowe'en approached, she told us of the mystic hempseed, of the figure which stalled behind the enterprising navigator of the stacks, and that awful detention of the worsted clue, which has made the heart of many a rustic maiden leap hurriedly towards her throat, when in the dead of night, and beneath the influence of a waning moon, she has dared to pry into the secrets of futurity, and, lover-seeking, has dropped the ball into the chasm of the deserted kiln.