tears, you dear good-hearted girl: no, I'll dry
them for you."

He took out a white handkerchief and dried
her cheeks gently for her, and gave her a parting
kiss; but the Archbold's patience was exhausted;
a door opened nearly opposite, and there she
stood yellow with jealousy and sombre as night
with her ebon brows. At sight of this lowering
figure Hannah uttered a squawk, and fled with
cheeks red as fire. Alfred, not aware of Mrs.
Archbold's smouldering passion, and little dreaming
that jealous anguish and rage stood incarnate
before him, burst out laughing like a
mischievous boy; on this she swept upon him, and
took him by both shoulders, and awed him with
her lowering brows close to his. "You ungrateful wretch,"
she said violently, and panted.

His colour rose. " Ungrateful? That I am
not, madam. Why do you call me so?"

"You are; you are. What have I done to you
that you run from me to the very servants?
However, she shall be packed off this very night,
and you to thank for it."

This was the way to wound the generous
youth. "Now it is you that are ungenerous,"
he said. "What harm has the poor girl done?
She had a virtuous movement, and pitied me for
the heartless fraud I suffer by; that is all. Pray
do you never pity me?"

"Was it this virtuous movement set her
kissing you?" said the Archbold, clenching her
teeth as if the word stung her, like the sight.

"She didn't, now," said Alfred; "it was
I kissed her."

"And yet you pretend to love your Julia so
truly?"

"This is no place for that sacred name,
madam. But be sure I have no secrets from her,
and kiss nobody she would not kiss herself."

"She must be a very accommodating young
lady."

At this insult Alfred rose pale with anger, and
was about to defy his monitor mortally; but the
quickwitted woman saw and disarmed him; in
one moment, before ever he could speak, she was
a transformed creature, a penitent; she put her
hands together supplicatingly, and murmured,

"I didn't mean it; I respect her;and your
love for her: forgive me, Alfred: I am so
unhappy, oh forgive me."

And behold she held his hand between her soft,
burning palms, and her proud head sank languidly
on his shoulder, and the inevitable tears ran gently.

Morals apart, it was glorious love-making.

"Bother the woman," thought Alfred.

"Promise me not to do it again," she
murmured, "and the girl shall stay."

"Oh, lord, yes, I promise; though I can't see
what it matters to you."

"Not much, cruel boy, alas! But it matters
to her; for—— " She kissed Alfred's hand
gently and rose to her feet and moved away, but
at the second step turned her head sudden as a
bird and finished her sentence— "if you kiss
her before me, I shall kill her before you."

Here was a fresh complication! The men had
left off blistering, torturing, and bullying him;
but his guardian angels, the women, were turning
up their sleeves to pull caps over him, and
plenty of the random scratches would fall on
him. If anything could have made him pine
more to be out of the horrid place, this
voluptuous prospect would. He hunted everywhere
for Brown. But he was away the day with a
patient. At night he lay awake for a long time,
thinking how he should open the negotiation;
he shrank from it. He felt a delicacy about
bribing Beelzebub's servant to betray him.

As Hannah had originated the idea, he thought
he might very well ask her to do the dirty work
of bribing Brown, and he would pay her for i;
only in money, not kisses. With this resolution
he sank to sleep; and his spirit broke prison:
he stood with Julia before the altar, and the
priest made them one. Then the church and the
company and daylight disappeared, and her own
sweet low moving voice came thrilling, "My
own, own, own," she murmured, " I love you
ten times more for all you have endured for me;"
and with this her sweet lips settled on his like
the dew.

Impartial sleep flies at the steps of the scaffold
and the gate of Elysium: so Alfred awoke at the
above. But doubted whether he was quite awake;
for two lips were touching his. He stirred, and
somebody was gone like the wind, with a rustle of
flying petticoats, and his door shut in a moment;
it closed with a catch-lock; his dastardly assailant
had opened it with her key, and left it open to
make good her retreat if he should awake while
she was stealing what she came after. Alfred
sat up in bed indignant, and somewhat fluttered.
"Confound her impudence," said he. But there
was no help for it; he grinned and bore it, as
he had the blisters, and boluses, &c., rolled the
clothes round his shoulders, and off to the sleep
of the just again. Not so the passionate hypocrite,
who, maddened by a paroxysm of jealousy,
had taken this cowardly advantage of a prisoner.
She had sucked fresh poison from those honest
lips, and filled her veins with molten fire. She
tossed and turned the livelong night in a high
fever of passion, nor were the cold chills wanting
of shame and fear at what she had done.

In the morning, Alfred remembered this
substantial vision, and determined to find out which
of those two it was. "I shall know by her
looks," said he; "she won't be able to meet my
eye." Well, the first he saw was Mrs. Archbold.
She met his eye full with a mild and pensive
dignity. "Come, it is not you," thought Alfred.
Presently he fell in with Hannah. She wore a
serene, infantine face, the picture of unobtrusive
modesty. Alfred was dumb-foundered. " It's not
this one, either," said he. " But, then, it must.
Confound her impudence for looking so modest."
However, he did not speak to her; he was looking
out for a face that interested him far more:
the weather-beaten countenance of Giles Brown.
He saw him once or twice, but could not get