before. I had to plead for him at the trial, but the evidence was so strong against him, that no earthly power could save him from the gibbet. The likeness between this wretch and the portrait before me was very remarkable. This, then, was the incarnation of deep crime. These are the features that mark a life given up to every sort of cruelty, licentiousness, and depravity. The physiognomy was peculiar, and never to be forgotten when once seen. The head was round as a bullet, the hair red, short and bristly, the moustache and peaked beard of the same hue; the eyes greenish, and obliquely set in the head, like those of a cat, with an expression of the most indescribable ferocity and malice. The eyebrows red and tufted, running up also in an oblique direction, one of them being considerably higher than the other. Between the brows was a deep line. The forehead was flat, and retired from the temples in two separate peaks, that appeared to run up nearly to the back of his head; the nose was at once hooked and flat, like the bill of a parrot; the mouth was wide; the lips thin and compressed, with unpleasant lines at the corners; the chin and jaw square and massive; the neck resembling that of a bull; the ears were unusually large, and stuck out at the sides; the complexion was florid, with two pouches under the eyes, which seemed to drag the eyes down and give them a bloodshot appearance. A deep line in the cheeks, extending from each wing of the nose to the corners of the mouth, gave to the countenance a look of cynical disdain, and completed a portrait at once characteristic and revolting. The costume was early Elizabethan, and the arms of the Baron, together with his name and his age--forty-six--when the portrait was taken, were depicted with the date in the corner of the picture. For a while I sat musing. "Fit spirit," I muttered, "to inhabit the form of a flea! Heartless, worthless, bloodthirsty." I gazed at the portrait with feelings of horror and disgust. The eyes seemed to answer my expression with a look of anger.

I was unable to judge of the merits of the picture as a work of art, being little versed in such matters; but of one thing I am certain, that the painter had endeavoured to imitate as truthfully as it lay in his power all the leading characteristics of the Baron's physiognomy without any attempt at flattery.

As I mused it grew late; it was now just upon midnight. I finished undressing and climbed into my bed, a high old-fashioned four-poster with heavy embroidered curtains. The Baron still scowled at me from the mantelpiece, but, without returning his gaze, I set to work diligently to search for the flea. I drew back the top sheet slowly until 

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