- THE VISIT OF A SILVEESMITH, AKD 
ITS EESULTS. 
nearly a dozen women were all sitting round her, 
supporting her head, stroking her limbs, moaning, 
groaning, and rocking to and fro, she certainly had 
all the appearance of being dead. But the tattan’s was 
busy at his work, ting, ting, tingle, seeming quite 
unconscious, and careless about the murder he was 
accused of having committed. On being told in very 
harsh terms, to get up, and see the result of his 
cruel treatment, that his wife was dead, without even 
pausing in his work he said, ‘‘Nevermind, my wife has 
been dead very often, I am quite accustomed to her 
sudden decease, and feel very easy on the subject. 
Take no notice of her, and her life, in all its peculiar 
phases, will soon return : a great deal too soon for 
my own personal comfort. Dead!” Ting. “Dead 1” 
Ting, tingle. ‘ ‘ I wish she was. Too good news to be 
true.” Ting, ting, tingle. The conductor now came 
up, to see the cause of all this unhappy disturbance, 
saying, “Let me in, let me see her.” He pushed all 
the women away, raised her arms, but they fell power- 
less, her neck seemed to be broken, and could not 
support the head He then said in a loud voice, “Yes, 
she is quite dead, and must be buried at sunset. I 
will go and set on coolies to dig the grave, ” but not 
a motion or movement did the corpse make, and says 
he, “You are surely not going to bury all these fine 
silver ornaments. No doubt the tattan will be tak- 
ing another wife next week, and will of course re- 
quire them all for her.” A strange sound was now heard 
proceeding out of the mouth of the dead body, very 
similar to the grinding of teeth. Could it be possible, 
that the bare possibility of this dire contingency, 
acted so strongly on the spirit of the dead wife, as 
to induce its return to the body, in order to prevent 
it ! But the spirit again departed, leaving the body 
as before. The conductor, a rough, hard man, again 
said, ‘ ‘It is getting late, we cannot put off any more 
time, strip off her bracelets, and all the ornaments.” 
They caught hold of her arms, and tried to open the 
bracelet clasps, but the arms were very soon jerked 
behind her back, and the corpse being, aware that all 
deception was now useless, got up, laid hold of the 
cooking chatties, commencing to wash rice as if no- 
thing had happened, only she looked very sour and 
sulky, and did not speak, but the tattan’s, wife 
was not the sort of lady to remain any length of 
time speechless, for she suddenly burst out into a 
torrent of abuse, against all the women in the room, 
asking them, what they wanted there. “Get out of 
this, every one of you ; no doubt you are all sorry 
I am not dead, for, when you heard I was, you all 
