Very grateful and pleased was Patty, as time progressed and temptations multiplied, to find that her dear husband was proof against the strongest. Never was he known to be in the least degree inebriated after his return from the memorable expedition to Wood End; and not even to keep the "cold out," would he sip a drop of "fire-water" undiluted. The "warning" had not been in vain; and a long while after the events recorded had taken place, when Patty was made acquainted with them by her loving husband, who detested all concealments from the partner of his cares, she exclaimed in pitying tones, "It was very natural, my dear, that your thoughts should run on the terrible story about those precious babies, you that have little ones of your own. For _my_ part, nothing in the wide world would tempt _me_ to go a-fishing in those deep dark pools of Ellendeen; I should expect, every time I pulled up a heavy weight to see a dear baby instead of a fish!" "But my dear," deprecatingly returned Joel, "even if the tale be true, it happened a century back, you know." "Ah, Jo, Jo!" cried Patty, with a sly smile, "if I had a brandy-flask in my basket, _perhaps_ I might forget _that_ important fact." A WATERSPOUT IN THE INDIAN OCEAN. One of the noblest and most beautiful sights in the world is a gallant, symmetrical, full-rigged ship, clothed with mighty wings from keel to truck, cleaving through the waves under the influence of a "right merrie" wind abeam. There is something exceedingly grand, to behold it steadily gliding along, like a thing instinct with life; to see its towering pyramidal sails swelling to the generous breeze; to glance from its fluttering ensigns, and bright sides, and snowy canvas, to the contrasting deep blue sea, sparkling beneath the vertical rays of the tropical sun; to hastily run over in one's mind a few only of the spirit-stirring associations conjured by the object. But it is not with a ship in this exhilarating position that I have now to deal; to the reverse--it is with one which lay like "a painted ship upon a painted ocean"--being a large East Indiaman, chartered to convey troops to the Bombay presidency, and lying totally becalmed not far from the tropics. I was languidly swinging in my hammock, one sultry morning, when not a breath of air was stirring strong enough "to blow a lady's curl aside," when I heard a sound which convinced me that something unusual had occurred to arouse the listless idlers lounging on the upper deck. It speedily increased to such a degree that all between decks who were able (myself included) rushed up, pell-mell, to discover the reason, and soon there were none left below but the miserable sick, who could not crawl from their stifling berths. "What's the kick-up?" roared the gigantic corporal of the grenadier company, the moment he got his head above the combing of the hatchway.