Here, an onion, thrown from the rear of the room by some sympathetic partner in Captain Pharo's woes, came whizzing over our heads and just missed the woman, by good aim; she retreated without the formality of her usual sweeping bow. The manager began hastily to get together his stage setting for the play. A table and a bottle were first produced; Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin began to nudge each other with choice anticipation of the advancing drama, when another onion, thrown with unerring vision, took the bottle and shattered it, with its contents, upon the stage floor, directly under our faces. Captain Pharo leaned forward and sniffed; so did Uncle Coffin. "Water! Coffin, by clam!" said Captain Pharo, rising. "Plackards said 'twas goin' to be a re'listic play--and here, by clam! I've rode twelve miles over a hubbly road an' waited 'round here all day, jest t' hear a spear o' female grass screech, an' see a pint bottle o' water busted! Come along! I'm goin' home." How futile indeed are the poor effects of the stage compared with the ever new and varied drama of life itself! As Miss Pray and I came in sight of her cottage, at this now uncanny hour of the night, we saw that the house was all alight, and Belle O'Neill stood in the doorway, loudly and gleefully ringing the dinner-bell. "O Miss Pray, there was a dead pig washed ashore to-day, right down on your clam-bottoms--such a beautiful one!--jest as fat!--and me and Wesley brought it up and roasted it, and we've been expectin' you, an' expectin' you, an' tryin' to keep it hot----" "A dead pig!" hissed Miss Pray. "Do you want to murder us? Do you want to drown me in the morning and p'ison me at night, Belle O'Neill? For heaven's sake, have you et any of it?" The appearance of the dish testified only too plainly that she and Wesley had dined. "You're p'isoned!" shrieked Miss Pray: "be you prepared, Belle O'Neill? Fat pig! He was prob'bly bloated with p'ison! Oh, dear! oh, mercy! you're prob'bly dyin' this very minit." Belle O'Neill began to howl, Wesley to weep dismally with low moans, his fists in his eyes. I had a medicine which I administered to the two, in case the exigency were as fearful as Miss Pray predicted, which I strongly doubted. From this, as Belle O'Neill recovered, she turned to Miss Pray with the confessional fearlessness of one who has been at the grave's brink. "And, oh, Miss Pray! the brindle cow 's calved and hid it in the woods!" "So you've been down by the sea-wall, hunting up things to p'ison the only friend you ever had on earth with, and left the brindle cow and her calf to die in the woods?" But Belle O'Neill had reached that plane of despondency where the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune could no longer sting her. "I meant it for the best, Miss Pray," she said, as we all started, with the lantern, for the woods.