marten-house, for children.

* * * * *

The people believed that John Hancock's uncle had bought an immense
diamond at a low price, and sold it for its value,--he having grown rich
with a rapidity inexplicable to them. The fact was, however, according
to Hutchinson, that he made his fortune by smuggling tea in molasses
hogsheads from St. Eustatia.

* * * * *

An old French Governor of Acadie, the predecessor of D'Aulnay, paid for
some merchandise, which he bought of the captain of an English vessel,
with six or seven hundred buttons of massive gold, taken from one of his
suits. (Mass. Hist. Coll.)

* * * * *

An apparition haunts the front yard. I have often, while sitting in the
parlor, in the daytime, had a perception that somebody was passing the
windows; but, looking towards them, nobody is there. The appearance is
never observable when looking directly towards the window, but only by
such a sidelong or indirect glance as one gets while reading, or when
intent on something else. But I know not how many times I have raised my
head or turned with the certainty that somebody were passing. The other
day I found that my wife was equally aware of the spectacle, and that,
as likewise agrees with my own observation, it always appears to be
entering the yard from the street, never going out.