When I found her in the ante-room I naturally recoiled, and tried to back out again, smiling blandly all the time, as one does when a violent-looking dog comes up, and begins sniffing about your legs. Miss Martin, however, was used to these manoeuvres, and suddenly getting between me and the door, intercepted my retreat, and insisted on telling me, for the twentieth time, how villanously the Advocate General had deceived her. Escape was impossible; I groaned and sweated with anguish, but listen I must, and had to suffer martyrdom for an hour, when the Governor's door opened, and he himself looked out. On seeing the Gorgon he tried to withdraw, but she pounded like a tigress through the door-way, and slamming the door after her, secured an audience with his Excellency, which she took care should not be a short one. I could remain no longer, and therefore owe the rest of the story to public report. After an hour's tete-a-tete, his Excellency's voice grew more imperative. The clerks, highly interested, conceived that he was insisting upon her withdrawing. It is supposed that he could not possibly escape himself, as she of course cut off all communication with either the door or the bell-rope. The lady's voice also waxed higher; at length it rose into a storm. Nothing more was heard of the poor Governor beyond a faint, moaning sound; whether he was deprecating the tempest, or being actually strangled, became a matter of grave speculation. Some asserted that they heard his kicks upon the floor, others could only hear convulsive sobs; then all fancied they could distinguish the sounds of a struggle. The officials debated whether it would be proper or indelicate to look in upon the interview; but it became so evident that a scuffle was going on, that the private secretary's anxiety overcame all other considerations. The door was opened just as his Excellency, escaping from the grasp of the mad woman, had made a vault at the railing which ran across the farther end of the Council Room (to keep back the public on certain days), in hopes of effecting his escape by the door beyond. Nothing could have been better conceived than this design; but unhappily the lady had caught hold of his coat-tail to arrest his flight, and therefore instead of vaulting clear over the rails, as he had anticipated, his Excellency was drawn back in his leap, and found himself seated astride upon the barrier, with a desperate woman tugging at his tail, and trying to pull him back into the arena. Nothing, we believe, has ever exceeded the ludicrous misery displayed in his Excellency's visage on finding himself in this perilous situation. But seeing the private secretary and a mob of clerks, with their pens in their hands, hastening to his rescue, he made a desperate effort, and cast himself off on the other side; and finally succeeded in rushing out of the room, having only one tail hanging to his coat, with which he escaped into an adjoining