The lady was astonished and frightened, but had courage enough to rush towards the scene of action. But as soon as she had reached the head of the stairway leading to the cellar, a sight met her eyes which compelled her to retire; for modesty forbade her taking any part in the strife, although her companion was vastly overpowered and sadly in need of assistance. On the stairway stood M. T. Pate; having just escaped from the combined assault made upon him by a large number of dogs which had been temporarily confined in the cellar by the proprietor of the mansion. The whole of poor Pate's under-garments had been torn from his person, and there he stood in a tailless coat and a stout pair of boots, thanking a merciful Providence for the preservation of his life. In this condition he did not dare to appear in the presence of his fair companion, and communication was carried on between them, by each taking a position in a separate apartment and calling to the other in a voice raised to a high key. After a prolonged consultation conducted in this manner, the widow proposed to leave one of her under-garments in the room which she then occupied and retreat to another, while he came in and put it on. Poor Pate thankfully accepted the loan which the kind lady offered him; being driven to this shift to hide his nudity. He and the widow were compelled to remain in that lonely mansion until the shades of night covered the earth, when he drove her in his buggy back to the city. He left her at her door and proceeded with his buggy to a livery-stable. Here the sight of his strange habiliments created great amazement among the hostlers and stable-boys; and when he started up the street in his robes he was arrested by the police and carried to a station-house; where he spent the whole night weeping and wailing on a hard oaken bench. In the morning he was taken before a magistrate, where his strange story was listened to with wonder mingled with much merriment; and being entirely satisfactory, he obtained his discharge, as well as the loan of a coat and a pair of pantaloons. On the following day Pate called upon the widow and restored the garment borrowed from her, after the brutal assault upon his person in the lonely mansion. She blushed when she received it, and sank into a chair overcome with emotion. The heart of a woman is an inexplicable puzzle. Newton, with his mighty mind, could comprehend the movements of suns and planets and calculate their density; but woman was to him an incomprehensible problem, even when he pressed the hand of a fair lady who sat by his side, and felt that he could make so free as to thrust her finger into the bowl of his pipe. Who can tell what caused the widow to bestow her affections on M. T. Pate? Perhaps, after he had so nearly fallen a bleeding victim to canine ferocity,-- "She loved him for the dangers he had passed, And he loved her that she did pity them."