FOR four reasons we purpose now to move, by summery stages and many an ocean isle, to Portate, whither these, my written words, will perhaps not long precede us.

The four reasons: First; the poet Sadler claims to have been once banished by executive edict from the city of Portate, and has a notion he would like to examine his condition of exile, so to speak, at close range; to poke once more a certain irascible Jefe Municipal, or Mayor, doubtless of your acquaintance, in the midriff of his temper. Second; Mrs. Ulswater seems to have a singular hankering affection for one who, she says, “was the nicest boy there is,”—a distinct opinion in a confusion of tenses.

Third; the poet Susannah. Now what the bearing may be, in Mrs. Ulswater's mind, of Portate on Susannah, is not so clear to me. But to me this is clear, that Susannah is in a way outgrowing the capacity of islands. She is in need, I admit, of a continental connection. Fourth; I have some researches to make in South-American archaeology.

Ah, Susannah! What is there about this frank maidenhood that a mist sometimes gathers in Mrs. Ulswater's lucid eyes in looking at her. Susannah's nature is not, as yet, I should say, compact of softest sentiment. Passionate in affection, sudden in resolve, terrific in action, given to valour and wrath, why about her should the emotions of this vessel all dance in a species of harmonious jig? Why should this concussive and rebounding person rouse in my own glutinous nature a phosphorescent glow, as of a jelly fish, and cause my languid tentacles of emotion to flutter about like a flag in the wind? Why lies the melancholy Sadler tonight on the small of his back in a deck chair, his knees hooked over the rail, his feet pendant above the sea, and, in a foggy voice, to an abominable tune and the twankle of an exasperating banjo, sing:

“Good night, my Starlight,

Queen of my heart.

You are my star bright,

We are apart.

Me where the high seas

Thunder and smite,

You in your sky dreams,

Good night, Starlight.”

I do not, indeed, apprehend Sadler to be directly addressing Susannah, as such, in these terms and with that inharmonious vocalisation; but I apprehend the impact of Susannah upon Sadler to arouse in him something other than jubilation, something within the sunless caverns of his memory, certain uneasy glimmerings of an old romance. And I ask, why? To the eye of pure reason, Susannah contains as much of the vapour of moonlit sentiment as a coal scuttle. The eye of pure reason, after any continuous examination of Susannah, feels as if it had been in a prize fight, and emerged therefrom a blackened optic and out of business for the time. And yet there arises—hark! again, above the low breath of the sea wind, rises that melancholy song:

“ Good night, my Starlight,

Trembling to tears,

White is my hair, white

In the wake of the years.

Over the lee wave

You shine on my night,

Me, the old sea waif,

Good night, Starlight?”

Yours—Ulswater.

(End of Dr. Ulswater's Fourth and Last Manuscript. )