discipline, sent for Codrington, and addressed him: 'Captain
Codrington, pray have you any idea of the price of a bullock in this
place?' 'No, my lord,' was the reply, 'I have not; but I know well
the value of a British sailor's life!']




THE MYSTERIOUS LADY.


It is thirty years since we first met the Mysterious Lady at a
fashionable sea-side boarding-house, and on our introduction, we
found that her brother, General Jerningham, was well known to some
members of our family. For five-and-twenty years afterwards she
haunted us at intervals; and so singularly and secretly conducted
were all her movements, that had she lived in the days of the
Inquisition, Miss Jerningham might have proved one of its most
valuable agents and coadjutors. She was a thin, middle-aged
personage, or, more correctly speaking, of uncertain age, and
without anything remarkable in her exterior, which was decidedly
lady-like, if we except a pair of the very smallest and most
restless brown eyes that were ever set in mortal's head. These eyes
expressed suspicion, together with intelligence and close
observation. They were clear and sparkling, and shaded by no
drooping fringes; and some folks declared that Miss Jerningham slept
with her eyes open. On conversing with her, she appeared to have
been everywhere and to know everything; but the moment any allusion
was made to the future, any attempt to discuss _her_ prospective
plans, then did the little brown eyes assume a reddish tinge, their