110 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



the path, which might overturn their little living 

 waggon." 



My uncle having rightly guessed the waggon, 

 he was next called before the house; Mary first 

 giving him his text word. 



" I would readily gratify with a tale all the 

 friends collected here to be amused ; but alas ! 

 not having been gifted with invention, by the 

 fairy presiding at my birth, I can offer you nothing 

 but an historical fact : I can vouch, however, for 

 its fidelity, as I had it from the lips of the person 

 to whom it occurred. 



" When Sir Charles W, was ambassador at 

 the court of St. Petersburg, he found that the 

 intrigues of a party in the Russian cabinet were 

 all directed against our interests ; and, with his 

 usual promptness, he wrote despatches to commu- 

 nicate the circumstance to his own government. 

 These despatches were treacherously obtained by 

 the Russians ; but as they were found to be in a 

 secret cipher, they were incomprehensible. By 

 the most culpable want of fidelity, however, in 

 some of Sir Charles's household, it was discovered 

 that the key to this cipher was pasted on a screen, 

 which he kept carefully locked up in a closet, 

 within his own bed- room; yet in spite of this 

 precaution, some artful person contrived to get 

 in there, and was thus enabled to decipher his 

 dispatches. 



" The following night, he was awakened by his 



