"The ghost of his money rose in judgment against him; and he returned to his own house, moralising on the deceptive influences of rose-coloured stockings. He knocked at the door; it was opened by his wife, a chaplet in her hand, and tears in her eyes. 'Ah! Patricio,' she said, in a voice which told her affliction; 'how can you thus abandon your home? how can you thus neglect your wife--your children? Where have you been from six this morning, when you left us?' The husband, whom this question would have puzzled to answer satisfactorily, and who was, besides, somewhat ashamed of himself, had not a word to say; so he undressed, and got into bed in silence. His wife, however, was not in want of a text; and she read him a lecture, the continuous hum of which, as you perceive, has soothed him to sleep."
[Illustration: Patricio lulled to sleep by his wife's lecture]
"And now," continued Asmodeus, "cast your eyes upon the large house by the side of that in which the cavalier is writing to his friends the story of his rupture with the mistress of Ambrose. Do you not remark a young lady sleeping in a bed of crimson satin, embroidered with gold?" "Wait!--oh, yes!--I see a lady sleeping; and I fancy I see a book, open, on her pillow." "Precisely so," answered the Demon. "That lady is a talented young countess, full of life and spirit: she has recently suffered extremely from sleepless nights, and having sent for a physician, one of the most dignified of his class, he has prescribed for her a remedy, derived, he says, from Hippocrates himself. The lady, nevertheless, ridiculed his prescription; at which the physician, a crabbed sort of animal, who does not understand joking, said to her, with a proper professional gravity: 'Madam, Hippocrates is not a man to be laughed at.' 'Certainly not, signor doctor,' replied the Countess, with the most serious air imaginable; 'far from laughing at so celebrated and learned an author, I think so highly of him, that I feel assured the mere opening of his work will cure me of my sleeplessness. I have in my library a new translation from the pen of Azero; it is, I believe, the best: here! find it for me,' added she, turning to her attendant. You behold the magic power of Hippocrates! She had not read three pages before she sank into profound repose.