disposed to relate a tragic anecdote about our friend Henry Bright.
Early in our Rock Ferry residence he came to dine with us--or I rather
think it was to supper. At any rate, it was an informal occasion, and
the children were admitted to table. My mother had in the cupboard
a jar of excellent raspberry jam, and she brought it forth for the
delectation of our guest. He partook of it liberally, and said he had
never eaten any jam so good; it had a particular tang to it, he
declared, which outdid his best recollections of all previous
raspberry jam from his boyhood up. While he was in the midst of these
rhapsodies, and still consuming their subject with enthusiasm, my
mother, who had taken some of the jam on her own plate, suddenly made
a ghastly discovery. The jam-pot had been for several days standing in
the cupboard with its top off, or ajar, and an innumerable colony of
almost microscopic red ants had discovered it, and launched themselves
fervently upon it and into it; it had held them fast in its sweet but
fatal embrace, and other myriads had followed their fellows into the
same delicious and destructive abyss. What the precise color of the
ants may have been before they became incorporate with the jam is not
known; but as the case was, they could be distinguished from it only
by their voluptuous struggles in its controlling stickiness. Only the
keenest eye could discern them, and the eyes of Henry Bright were
among the most near-sighted in England. Besides, according to his
custom, he was talking with the utmost volubility all the time.

What was to be done? My father and mother stealthily exchanged an
awful look, and the question was settled. It was too late to recall
the ants which our friend had devoured by tens of thousands. It
seemed not probable that, were he kept in ignorance of his
predicament, they would do him any serious bodily injury; whereas,
were he enlightened, imagination might get in her fatal work.