|WHATEVER evils may happen unto me, may Heaven spare my reason,” was the heartfelt prayer of a wise and reverent man. He might have added--for he was one of those who thought it no harm to ask of Him who watches the sparrow's fall, for particular blessings--“And however I be racked with pain by day, by night may I still enjoy my sleep.” Next to madness, and like enough with some folks to end in that, is the want of rest during that period which should be the season of slumber, and which, if it be not so, is a dread and dreary time indeed. There is many an honest soul in the autumn of life who will protest in the morning, in the course of a very tolerable breakfast, that she has not had a wink of sleep all night, because she has heard a few consecutive hours recorded by the church clock; but to lie awake indeed from eve to mom is not, thank God, a very common experience, and still less often are any of us compelled to endure it night after night for years. To live an existence the converse of the rest of their fellow-creatures is the lot of more than one trade--editors of daily newspapers, for instance, and burglars; but to _work_ by night is a very different affair from the lying awake unemployed, but thinking, thinking, while nothing breaks the silence of the muffled world save the howl of the watchdog and the weird monotony of the wind. Yet there are some of us doomed to this sad fate, who scarcely know what it is to spend an easeful night, and who snatch their scanty dole of sleep by day. Poor Jacob Forest was one of these. A long life of reckless exposure to the elements, not, perhaps, unassisted by hard drinking, had brought him to this sad pass. Thanks to his daughter, he wanted for nothing that money could give him; but the once hale and venturous mariner was now bedridden and racked at most times, but especially by night, with rheumatic twinges. Mary herself never failed to visit him every summer; and three days out of four some ancient comrade would painfully climb the hill that led to his cosy little house, and hob and nob with him by his bedside. But he was still sadly in want of company during the night-watches; true, a nurse was paid to minister to his comforts during that season, but she generally “dropped off” into a doze, sooner or later; and even if she was awake, her gossip was of the tea-and-muffin sort, rather than that description of talk which goes best with hot grog, and was more suitable to a seasoned vessel, though laid up in extra-ordinary, like old Jacob. Therefore it was, as the waiter at the _Royal Marine_ had observed, that visitors calling at ultrafashionably late hours at the Guard-ship, as it was the proprietor's fancy to term his place of residence, were especially welcome.