DUNCAN GRANT



[Illustration: MR. AND MRS. TEBRICK AT HOME]


Wonderful or supernatural events are not so uncommon, rather they are
irregular in their incidence. Thus there may be not one marvel to speak
of in a century, and then often enough comes a plentiful crop of them;
monsters of all sorts swarm suddenly upon the earth, comets blaze in
the sky, eclipses frighten nature, meteors fall in rain, while mermaids
and sirens beguile, and sea-serpents engulf every passing ship, and
terrible cataclysms beset humanity.

But the strange event which I shall here relate came alone, unsupported,
without companions into a hostile world, and for that very reason
claimed little of the general attention of mankind. For the sudden
changing of Mrs. Tebrick into a vixen is an established fact which we
may attempt to account for as we will. Certainly it is in the
explanation of the fact, and the reconciling of it with our general
notions that we shall find most difficulty, and not in accepting for
true a story which is so fully proved, and that not by one witness but
by a dozen, all respectable, and with no possibility of collusion
between them.

But here I will confine myself to an exact narrative of the event and
all that followed on it. Yet I would not dissuade any of my readers from
attempting an explanation of this seeming miracle because up till now