therefore favored me with a special permit to pass the rest of my useful life within the walls of a place vulgarly termed the State Prison--a very beautiful edifice when viewed from the outside. I did not long remain there, however, to partake of the State's hospitality--to be brief, I ran away, but was carried back again, after being a year at liberty, through the instrumentality of Sydney, whom may the devil confound! But again I escaped--you know in what manner; and you are well acquainted with most of my adventures since--my cutting out the boy _Kinchen's_ tongue, my murder of Mrs. Stevens, and other matters not necessary for me to repeat.' 'But,' said Ragged Pete, with some hesitation, 'you haven't told me of your wife, you know.' 'Wife--ha, ha, ha!' and the Dead Man laughed long and loud; there was something in his laugh which chilled the blood, and made the heart beat with a nameless terror. 'True, Pete, I have not yet told you about my wife, as you call her. But you shall hear. What would you say if I told you that Mrs. Ross, the lady whose husband I murdered, whose children I blinded, and whom I so outrageously deceived herself--what would you say if you were told that the woman who passes for my wife, is that same lady?' 'I should say it was a thing impossible,' replied Pete. 'It is true,' rejoined the Dead Man.--'Listen:--when I left my counterfeiting friends in New Jersey, and returned to New York with my new face, I learned by inquiry that Mrs. Ross was living with her blind twins in a state of poverty, her husband's property, at his death, having been seized upon by his creditors, leaving her entirely destitute. I found her in an obscure part of the city, subsisting upon the charity of neighbors, the occupant of a garret. The woman's misfortunes, through me, had ruined her intellect;--she had grown fierce and reckless,--as wild as a tigress. I sat down and conversed with her; she knew me not. 'You are hideous to look upon,' said she, 'and I like you for it. The world is fair, but it has robbed me of husband, honor and taken away my children's eye-sight. Henceforward, all that is hideous I will love!' I saw that her brain was topsy-turvy, and it rejoiced me. Her children were still pretty, though they were blind; and it almost made me laugh to see them grope their way to their mother's side, and turning their sightless eyes toward her, ask, in childish accents,--'Mamma, what made the naughty man put out our eyes?' Well, the woman, with a singular perversity of human nature, liked me, and commenced to place herself under my protection. She could be of service to me; but her children were likely to prove a burden--and so I got rid of them.' 'What did you do with them--no harm, I hope?' asked Pete.