a young woman--What is your name, my dear?" "Dolly," answered the
daughter, with a curtsey. "Here's Dolly--I seize Dolly in tail--Dolly, I
seize you in tail"--"Sha't then," cried Dolly, pouting. "I am seized of
land in fee--I settle on Dolly in tail."

Dolly, who did not comprehend the nature of the illustration, understood
him in a literal sense, and, in a whimpering tone, exclaimed, "Sha't
then, I tell thee, cursed tuoad!" Tom, however, was so transported with
his subject, that he took no notice of poor Dolly's mistake, but
proceeded in his harangue upon the different kinds of tails, remainders,
and seisins, when he was interrupted by a noise that alarmed the whole
company. The rain had been succeeded by a storm of wind that howled
around the house with the most savage impetuosity, and the heavens were
overcast in such a manner that not one star appeared, so that all without
was darkness and uproar. This aggravated the horror of divers loud
screams, which even the noise of the blast could not exclude from the
ears of our astonished travellers. Captain Crowe called out, "Avast,
avast!" Tom Clarke sat silent, staring wildly, with his mouth still
open; the surgeon himself seemed startled, and Ferret's countenance
betrayed evident marks of confusion. The ostler moved nearer the
chimney, and the good woman of the house, with her two daughters, crept
closer to the company.

After some pause, the captain starting up, "These," said he, "be signals
of distress. Some poor souls in danger of foundering--let us bear up
a-head, and see if we can give them any assistance." The landlady begged
him, for Christ's sake, not to think of going out, for it was a spirit
that would lead him astray into fens and rivers, and certainly do him a
mischief. Crowe seemed to be staggered by this remonstrance, which his
nephew reinforced, observing, that it might be a stratagem of rogues to