Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

218 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
handed it over to the tar. He examined it, said it could
not have been done better in England, paid the price and
half a pint of rum for his skill, and restored the needle to its
owner. The little story has been so often told, we think it
has enough of interest now to have a locality.
RAMBLE CXXIII.
Central! Portsmouth before the Great Fire - Nicholas IRolsselet's fCourtship - The eccentric Josiah
Shackford - -is Unparalleled Feat of crossing the
Atlantic alone —The founder of Portsmouth, Ohio.
IN the expiring light of the old Museum the reader was
left in our last. Let us stir the embers a little to throw
some light on a small romantic incident in the life of its old
proprietor.
Nicholas Rousselet was a man of good exterior, and when
dressed in the official consular costume which he wore on
public days, was a man to attract attention. Of his first
acquaintance with Miss Moffatt, we have no account, but
tradition gives the story, that it was at the Episcopal
Church, in service hours, that the most importnnt crisis in
their courtship transpired. Sitting with her in her father's
pew, Mr. Rousselet handed Miss Catharine the Bible in
which he pencilled, in the first verse of the second epistle
of John, " VnUno the elect lady "-and the 5th verse entire"And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a
new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from
the beginning, that we love one another." Miiss Catharine,
fully comprehending the appeal, turned down a leaf in the
first chapter of Ruth, beginning in verse 16th —"Whither
thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge;