Year: 1876

night, at the same time informing hin
Of his intention to apprise his sist.r also
of what happened.


jackson sat perfectly silent for several
minntcs; at length grasping fIeathcote
warmly by the hand, he said in accents
tremulous wish emotion, s'I must give
up Julia, 1 must give her up, Frank,
can't in honor do otherwise yet bitter
as the trial viii be--the bitterest of my
whole life-I'm willing to endure it fol
her sake but [ could not tell her my
self, have not the heart to do it, SO you
must tell her, frank-and you'll break
it to her as gently as you can, won't you
! old fellow %


ST Will do all you desira of me- said
his friend, s'and much AL lament the
necessity for such a step, l admire you
all the more for the self sacrificing spirit
which has led you to adopt it. And now
before leave you, Alfred, there is one
| question l would like to ask: Have YOU
ever been seen or known to walk III oul
| sleep before 2"


''Ncver to my knowledge, Frank,
though to be quite open with you, the
revelations of last night may possibly
tend to throw somc light on strange
incident that occurred in my fathers
house some eighteen months ago, and to
some minds perhaps might suggest the
possibility that the present may not
have been the only occasion on which
had been guilty Of walking in my
sleep.


My aunt, Lady Arding, had just arriv-
ed on visit TO my parents. She had
been beautiful woman in her day, and
though then past seventy, still retained
abundant traces of her former beauty.
Her personal CHAINS at that period were
much enhanced by superb set of arti-
fetal teeth, which she thought it no sin
to palm off as her own they were, in
truth, first trate specimen OF art, and
had greatly excited my admiration from
the day I first saw them.


My amt was in the habit, rs my moth
er had told me, of removing her teeth
| from her mouth on going to bed, and
depositing them On her dressing table
Well, it happened one morning-it was
the day Lord A, an ex- Cabinet Min
lister and Privy Councillor, had been
asked to dine,-that my aunt's teeth
were reported to be missing. She was
almost beside herself with fury and vex-
alton, insisting that some evilly- disposed
person had designcdly, and from mo-
tives of spite, carried them off. Every
endeavor to mollify her, OF diaabuse her
of this idea, proved fruitless, and she
left my fathers house i'll perfect frenzy,
avowing she would never set foot in it
again, and she kept her word but this
was not all, she altered her will, and in
stead of leaving her money to my faith
er's children, as she had intended doing,
she left the whole of it to hospital
Not many months ago, and not long af-
ter my aunt's death, whilst engaged in
packing my valise for railway journey,
L discovered at the bottom of the bag
set of teeth corresponding in some re-
spects with the set my aunt had lost, but
whether they were hers and whether [
placed them there Or not, [ am not pre-
pared to say, though after what has just
happened, it is not impossible I may
have done So"


Heathcote, who till now had buoyed
himself up with the hope that his friend 5
peripatctic vagaries might be the effect
only of partial and temporary disturb
ance of his mental equilibrium, and not
a confirmed constitutional infirmity, af-
ter listening attentively to the above in
cident, could come to no other conclu-
sion than that the malady under which
his friend labored was one that was ha
bitual to him, and he dismissed ut once
from his mind all hopes of his ever mar
rying his sister Julia.


1t only remains for the writer 10 add
that the missing shirts were speedily ex-





trunk, and that that gentleman lost no
time i'll quitting Heathcote Hall, and in
returning to his own home, distant only
a few miles off, where he arrived only
just in time to enable him to put stop
to the preparations of his family for
their journey to Mr.. Heathcotes house
and attendance at their relatives nup-
tinls, now broken off and at on end for
ever.


The writer had heard nothing OF Mr.
Alfred jackson and his somnambuiistie
propensity for several years, when hap
pening one day to take up n newspaper,
he noticed, under the heading ssPoiice
Reports, the name of one Alfred jack
son, who was charged, while staying in
hotel at Plymouth, with having pur-
loined m embroidered satin waistcoat,
the property of an American gentleman
residing in the same hotel, and oooilpy-
ing the chamber adjoining thut OF the
accused.


The stolen property, which was mark
ed with the owners name In full, WIS
traced to the defendants possession, and
discovered in his portmanteau among
his clothes. He admitted that the arti-
Gle did not belong to him. but was unable
satisfactorily to account for it being
found in his trunk ; and his suggestion
that he might have appropriated it and
PLACED it there during his sleep not
seeming to satisfy the Bench. the pase
was remanded to enable the defendants
medical man, ard some other parties of
respectability, to be called for the de-
fence and as, among the latter, appear
ed the name of Frank Heathcote, the
writer entertained no doubt as to the
identity of the accused with the subject
of the foregoing tale view of the mat
Ter that was subsequently confirmed by
The evidence OF the aboye-named gentle