“Mr. Michael Warden too, a kind of client,” said the careless visitor, “and no bad one either: having played the fool for ten or twelve years. However Mr. Michael Warden has sown his wild oats now; there’s their crop, in that box; and means to repent and be wise. And in proof of it, Mr. Michael Warden means, if he can, to marry Marion, the Doctor’s lovely daughter, and to carry her away with him.”

“Really, Mr. Craggs,” Snitchey began.

“Really Mr. Snitchey, and Mr. Craggs, partners both,” said the client, interrupting him; “you know your duty to your clients, and you know well enough, I am sure, that it is no part of it to interfere in a mere love affair, which I am obliged to confide to you. I am not going to carry the young lady off, without her own consent. There’s nothing illegal in it. I never was Mr. Heathfield’s bosom friend. I violate no confidence of his. I love where he loves, and I mean to win where he would win, if I can.”

“He can’t, Mr. Craggs,” said Snitchey, evidently anxious and discomfited. “He can’t do it, Sir. She dotes on Mr. Alfred.”

“Does she?” returned the client.

“Mr. Craggs, she dotes on him, Sir,” persisted Snitchey.

“I didn’t live six weeks, some few months ago, in the Doctor’s house for nothing; and I doubted that soon,” observed the client. “She would have doted on him, if her sister could have brought it about; but I watched them. Marion avoided his name, avoided the subject: shrunk from the least allusion to it, with evident distress.”

“Why should she, Mr. Craggs, you know? Why should she, Sir?” inquired Snitchey.

“I don’t know why she should, though there are many likely reasons,” said the client, smiling at the attention and perplexity expressed in Mr. Snitchey’s shining eye, and at his cautious way of carrying on the conversation, and making himself informed upon the subject; “but I know she does. She was very young when she made the engagement – if it may be called one, I am not even sure of that – and has repented of it, perhaps. Perhaps – it seems a foppish thing to say, but upon my soul I don’t mean it in that light – she may have fallen in love with me, as I have fallen in love with her.”

“He, he! Mr. Alfred, her old playfellow too, you remember, Mr. Craggs,” said Snitchey, with a disconcerted laugh; “knew her almost from a baby!”

“Which makes it the more probable that she may be tired of his idea,” calmly pursued the client, “and not indisposed to exchange it for the newer one of another lover, who presents himself (or is presented by his horse) under romantic circumstances; has the not unfavorable reputation – with a country girl – of having lived thoughtlessly and gaily, without doing much harm to anybody; and who, for his youth and figure, and so forth – this may seem foppish again, but upon my soul I don’t mean it in that light – might perhaps pass muster in a crowd with Mr. Alfred himself.”

There was no gainsaying the last clause, certainly; and Mr. Snitchey, glancing at him, thought so. There was something naturally graceful and pleasant in the very carelessness of his air. It seemed to suggest, of his comely face and well-knit figure, that they might be greatly better if he chose: and that, once roused and made earnest (but he never had been earnest yet), he could be full of fire and purpose. “A dangerous sort of libertine,” thought the shrewd lawyer, “to seem to catch the spark he wants from a young lady’s eyes.”

“Now, observe, Snitchey,” he continued, rising and taking him by the button, “and Craggs,” taking him by the button also, and placing one partner on either side of him, so that neither might evade him. “I don’t ask you for any advice. You are right to keep quite aloof from all parties in such a matter, which is not one in which grave men like you could interfere, on any side. I am briefly going to review in half-a-dozen words, my position and intention, and then I shall leave it to you to do the best for me, in money matters, that you can: seeing, that, if I run away with the Doctor’s beautiful daughter (as I hope to do, and to become another man under her bright influence), it will be, for the moment, more chargeable than running away alone. But I shall soon make all that up in an altered life.”

“I think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. Craggs?” said Snitchey, looking at him across the client.

“I think not,” said Craggs. – Both listening attentively.

“Well! You needn’t hear it,” replied their client. “I’ll mention it, however. I don’t mean to ask the Doctor’s consent, because he wouldn’t give it me. But I mean to do the Doctor no wrong or harm, because (besides there being nothing serious in such trifles, as he says) I hope to rescue his child, my Marion, from what I see – I know– she dreads, and contemplates with misery: that is, the return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am so harried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a flying-fish; skulk about in the dark, am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds: but that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; and Marion will probably be richer – on your showing, who are never sanguine – ten years hence as my wife, than as the wife of Alfred Heathfield, whose return she dreads (remember that), and in whom or in any man, my passion is not surpassed. Who is injured yet? It is a fair case throughout. My right is as good as his, if she decide in my favor; and I will try my right by her alone. You will like to know no more after this, and I will tell you no more. Now you know my purpose, and wants. When must I leave here?”

“In a week,” said Snitchey. “Mr. Craggs? – ”

“In something less, I should say,” responded Craggs.

“In a month,” said the client, after attentively watching the two faces. “This day month. To-day is Thursday. Succeed or fail, on this day month I go.”

“It’s too long a delay,” said Snitchey; “much too long. But let it be so. I thought he’d have stipulated for three,” he murmured to himself. “Are you going? Good night, Sir.”

“Good night!” returned the client, shaking hands with the Firm. “You’ll live to see me making a good use of riches yet. Henceforth, the star of my destiny is, Marion!”

“Take care of the stairs, Sir,” replied Snitchey; “for she don’t shine there. Good night!”

“Good night!”

So they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of office-candles, watching him down; and when he had gone away, stood looking at each other.

“What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs?” said Snitchey.

Mr. Craggs shook his head.

“It was our opinion, on the day when that release was executed, that there was something curious in the parting of that pair, I recollect,” said Snitchey.

“It was,” said Mr. Craggs.

“Perhaps he deceives himself altogether,” pursued Mr. Snitchey, locking up the fireproof box, and putting it away; “or if he don’t, a little bit of fickleness and perfidy is not a miracle, Mr. Craggs. And yet I thought that pretty face was very true. I thought,” said Mr. Snitchey, putting on his great coat, (for the weather was very cold), drawing on his gloves, and snuffing out one candle, “that I had even seen her character becoming stronger and more resolved of late. More like her sister’s.”

“Mrs. Craggs was of the same opinion,” returned Craggs.

“I’d really give a trifle to-night,” observed Mr. Snitchey, who was a good-natured man, “if I could believe that Mr. Warden was reckoning without his host; but light-headed, capricious, and unballasted as he is, he knows something of the world and its people (he ought to, for he has bought what he does know, dear enough); and I can’t quite think that. We had better not interfere: we can do nothing, Mr. Craggs, but keep quiet.”

“Nothing,” returned Craggs.

“Our friend the Doctor makes light of such things,” said Mr. Snitchey, shaking his head. “I hope he mayn’t stand in need of his philosophy. Our friend Alfred talks of the battle of life,” he shook his head again, “I hope he mayn’t be cut down early in the day. Have you got your hat, Mr. Craggs? I am going to put the other candle out.”

Mr Craggs replying in the affirmative, Mr. Snitchey suited the action to the word, and they groped their way out of the council-chamber: now as dark as the subject, or the law in general.

My story passes to a quiet little study, where, on that same night, the sisters and the hale old Doctor sat by a cheerful fire-side. Grace was working at her needle. Marion read aloud from a book before her. The Doctor, in his dressing-gown and slippers, with his feet spread out upon the warm rug, leaned back in his easy chair, and listened to the book, and looked upon his daughters.

They were very beautiful to look upon. Two better faces for a fireside, never made a fireside bright and sacred. Something of the difference between them had been softened down in three years’ time; and enthroned upon the clear brow of the younger sister, looking through her eyes, and thrilling in her voice, was the same earnest nature that her own motherless youth had ripened in the elder sister long ago. But she still appeared at once the lovelier and weaker of the two; still seemed to rest her head upon her sister’s breast, and put her trust in her, and look into her eyes for counsel and reliance. Those loving eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, as of old.

“‘And being in her own home,’” read Marion, from the book; “‘her home made exquisitely dear by these remembrances, she now began to know that the great trial of her heart must soon come on, and could not be delayed. Oh Home, our comforter and friend when others fall away, to part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave – ’”

“Marion, my love!” said Grace.

“Why, Puss!” exclaimed her father, “what’s the matter?”

She put her hand upon the hand her sister stretched towards her, and read on; her voice still faltering and trembling, though she made an effort to command it when thus interrupted.

“‘To part with whom, at any step between the cradle and the grave, is always sorrowful. Oh Home, so true to us, so often slighted in return, be lenient to them that turn away from thee, and do not haunt their erring footsteps too reproachfully! Let no kind looks, no well-remembered smiles, be seen upon thy phantom face. Let no ray of affection, welcome, gentleness, forbearance, cordiality, shine from thy white head. Let no old loving word or tone rise up in judgment against thy deserter; but if thou canst look harshly and severely, do, in mercy to the Penitent!’”

“Dear Marion, read no more to-night,” said Grace – for she was weeping.

“I cannot,” she replied, and closed the book. “The words seem all on fire!”

The Doctor was amused at this; and laughed as he patted her on the head.

“What! overcome by a story-book!” said Doctor Jeddler. “Print and paper! Well, well, it’s all one. It’s as rational to make a serious matter of print and paper as of anything else. But dry your eyes, love, dry your eyes. I dare say the heroine has got home again long ago, and made it up all round – and if she hasn’t, a real home is only four walls; and a fictitious one, mere rags and ink. What’s the matter now?”

“It’s only me, Mister,” said Clemency, putting in her head at the door.

“And what’s the matter with you?” said the Doctor.

“Oh, bless you, nothing an’t the matter with me,” returned Clemency – and truly too, to judge from her well-soaped face, in which there gleamed as usual the very soul of good humour, which, ungainly as she was, made her quite engaging. Abrasions on the elbows are not generally understood, it is true, to range within that class of personal charms called beauty-spots. But it is better, going through the world, to have the arms chafed in that narrow passage, than the temper: and Clemency’s was sound and whole as any beauty’s in the land.

“Nothing an’t the matter with me,” said Clemency, entering, “but – come a little closer, Mister.”

The Doctor, in some astonishment, complied with this invitation.

“You said I wasn’t to give you one before them, you know,” said Clemency.

A novice in the family might have supposed, from her extraordinary ogling as she said it, as well as from a singular rapture or ecstasy which pervaded her elbows, as if she were embracing herself, that ‘one,’ in its most favorable interpretation, meant a chaste salute. Indeed the Doctor himself seemed alarmed, for the moment; but quickly regained his composure, as Clemency, having had recourse to both her pockets – beginning with the right one, going away to the wrong one, and afterwards coming back to the right one again – produced a letter from the Post-office.

“Britain was riding by on a errand,” she chuckled, handing it to the Doctor, “and see the Mail come in, and waited for it. There’s A. H. in the corner. Mr. Alfred’s on his journey home, I bet. We shall have a wedding in the house – there was two spoons in my saucer this morning. Oh Luck, how slow he opens it!”

All this she delivered, by way of soliloquy, gradually rising higher and higher on tiptoe, in her impatience to hear the news, and making a corkscrew of her apron, and a bottle of her mouth. At last, arriving at a climax of suspense, and seeing the Doctor still engaged in the perusal of the letter, she came down flat upon the soles of her feet again, and cast her apron, as a veil, over her head, in a mute despair, and inability to bear it any longer.

“Here! Girls!” cried the Doctor. “I can’t help it: I never could keep a secret in my life. There are not many secrets, indeed, worth being kept in such a – well! never mind that. Alfred’s coming home, my dears, directly.”

“Directly!” exclaimed Marion.

“What! The story-book is soon forgotten!” said the Doctor, pinching her cheek. “I thought the news would dry those tears. Yes. ‘Let it be a surprise,’ he says, here. But I can’t let it be a surprise. He must have a welcome.”

“Directly!” repeated Marion.

“Why, perhaps not what your impatience calls ‘directly,’” returned the Doctor; “but pretty soon too. Let us see. Let us see. To-day is Thursday, is it not? Then he promises to be here, this day month.”

“This day month!” repeated Marion, softly.

“A gay day and a holiday for us,” said the cheerful voice of her sister Grace, kissing her in congratulation. “Long looked forward to, dearest, and come at last.”

She answered with a smile; a mournful smile, but full of sisterly affection: and as she looked in her sister’s face, and listened to the quiet music of her voice, picturing the happiness of this return, her own face glowed with hope and joy.

And with a something else: a something shining more and more through all the rest of its expression: for which I have no name. It was not exultation, triumph, proud enthusiasm. They are not so calmly shown. It was not love and gratitude alone, though love and gratitude were part of it. It emanated from no sordid thought, for sordid thoughts do not light up the brow, and hover on the lips, and move the spirit, like a fluttered light, until the sympathetic figure trembles.

Doctor Jeddler, in spite of his system of philosophy – which he was continually contradicting and denying in practice, but more famous philosophers have done that – could not help having as much interest in the return of his old ward and pupil, as if it had been a serious event. So he sat himself down in his easy chair again, stretched out his slippered feet once more upon the rug, read the letter over and over a great many times, and talked it over more times still.

“Ah! The day was,” said the Doctor, looking at the fire, “when you and he, Grace, used to trot about arm-in-arm, in his holiday time, like a couple of walking dolls. You remember?”

“I remember,” she answered, with her pleasant laugh, and plying her needle busily.

“This day month, indeed!” mused the Doctor. “That hardly seems a twelve-month ago. And where was my little Marion then!”

“Never far from her sister,” said Marion, cheerily, “however little. Grace was everything to me, even when she was a young child herself.”

“True, Puss, true,” returned the Doctor. “She was a staid little woman, was Grace, and a wise housekeeper, and a busy, quiet, pleasant body; bearing with our humours and anticipating our wishes, and always ready to forget her own, even in those times. I never knew you positive or obstinate, Grace, my darling, even then, on any subject but one.”

“I am afraid I have changed sadly for the worse, since,” laughed Grace, still busy at her work. “What was that one, father?”

“Alfred, of course,” said the Doctor. “Nothing would serve you but you must be called Alfred’s wife; so we called you Alfred’s wife; and you liked it better, I believe (odd as it seems now), than being called a Duchess, if we could have made you one.”

“Indeed!” said Grace, placidly.

“Why, don’t you remember?” inquired the Doctor.

“I think I remember something of it,” she returned, “but not much. It’s so long ago.” And as she sat at work, she hummed the burden of an old song, which the Doctor liked.

“Alfred will find a real wife soon,” she said, breaking off; “and that will be a happy time indeed for all of us. My three years’ trust is nearly at an end, Marion. It has been a very easy one. I shall tell Alfred, when I give you back to him, that you have loved him dearly all the time, and that he has never once needed my good services. May I tell him so, love?”

“Tell him, dear Grace,” replied Marion, “that there never was a trust so generously, nobly, stedfastly discharged; and that I have loved you, all the time, dearer and dearer every day; and oh! how dearly now!”

“Nay,” said her cheerful sister, returning her embrace, “I can scarcely tell him that; we will leave my deserts to Alfred’s imagination. It will be liberal enough, dear Marion; like your own.”

With that she resumed the work she had for a moment laid down, when her sister spoke so fervently: and with it the old song the Doctor liked to hear. And the Doctor, still reposing in his easy chair, with his slippered feet stretched out before him on the rug, listened to the tune, and beat time on his knee with Alfred’s letter, and looked at his two daughters, and thought that among the many trifles of the trifling world, these trifles were agreeable enough.

Clemency Newcome in the mean time, having accomplished her mission and lingered in the room until she had made herself a party to the news, descended to the kitchen, where her coadjutor, Mr. Britain, was regaling after supper, surrounded by such a plentiful collection of bright pot-lids, well-scoured saucepans, burnished dinner-covers, gleaming kettles, and other tokens of her industrious habits, arranged upon the walls and shelves, that he sat as in the centre of a hall of mirrors. The majority did not give forth very flattering portraits of him, certainly; nor were they by any means unanimous in their reflections; as some made him very long-faced, others very broad-faced, some tolerably well-looking, others vastly ill-looking, according to their several manners of reflecting: which were as various, in respect of one fact, as those of so many kinds of men. But they all agreed that in the midst of them sat, quite at his ease, an individual with a pipe in his mouth, and a jug of beer at his elbow, who nodded condescendingly to Clemency, when she stationed herself at the same table.

“Well, Clemmy,” said Britain, “how are you by this time, and what’s the news?”

Clemency told him the news, which he received very graciously. A gracious change had come over Benjamin from head to foot. He was much broader, much redder, much more cheerful, and much jollier in all respects. It seemed as if his face had been tied up in a knot before, and was now untwisted and smoothed out.

“There’ll be another job for Snitchey and Craggs, I suppose,” he observed, puffing slowly at his pipe. “More witnessing for you and me, perhaps, Clemmy!”

“Lor!” replied his fair companion, with her favorite twist of her favorite joints. “I wish it was me, Britain.”

“Wish what was you?”

“A going to be married,” said Clemency.

Benjamin took his pipe out of his mouth and laughed heartily. “Yes! you’re a likely subject for that!” he said. “Poor Clem!” Clemency for her part laughed as heartily as he, and seemed as much amused by the idea. “Yes,” she assented, “I’m a likely subject for that; an’t I?”

“You’ll never be married, you know,” said Mr. Britain, resuming his pipe.

“Don’t you think I ever shall though?” said Clemency, in perfect good faith.

Mr. Britain shook his head. “Not a chance of it!”

“Only think!” said Clemency. “Well! – I suppose you mean to, Britain, one of these days; don’t you?”

A question so abrupt, upon a subject so momentous, required consideration. After blowing out a great cloud of smoke, and looking at it with his head now on this side and now on that, as if it were actually the question, and he were surveying it in various aspects, Mr. Britain replied that he wasn’t altogether clear about it, but – ye-es – he thought he might come to that at last.

“I wish her joy, whoever she may be!” cried Clemency.

“Oh she’ll have that,” said Benjamin; “safe enough.”

“But she wouldn’t have led quite such a joyful life as she will lead, and wouldn’t have had quite such a sociable sort of husband as she will have,” said Clemency, spreading herself half over the table, and staring retrospectively at the candle, “if it hadn’t been for – not that I went to do it, for it was accidental, I am sure – if it hadn’t been for me; now would she, Britain?”

“Certainly not,” returned Mr. Britain, by this time in that high state of appreciation of his pipe, when a man can open his mouth but a very little way for speaking purposes; and sitting luxuriously immovable in his chair, can afford to turn only his eyes towards a companion, and that very passively and gravely. “Oh! I’m greatly beholden to you, you know, Clem.”

“Lor, how nice that is to think of!” said Clemency.

At the same time, bringing her thoughts as well as her sight to bear upon the candle-grease, and becoming abruptly reminiscent of its healing qualities as a balsam, she anointed her left elbow with a plentiful application of that remedy.

“You see I’ve made a good many investigations of one sort and another in my time,” pursued Mr. Britain, with the profundity of a sage; “having been always of an inquiring turn of mind; and I’ve read a good many books about the general Rights of things and Wrongs of things, for I went into the literary line myself, when I began life.”

“Did you though!” cried the admiring Clemency.

“Yes,” said Mr. Britain; “I was hid for the best part of two years behind a bookstall, ready to fly out if anybody pocketed a volume; and after that I was light porter to a stay and mantua maker, in which capacity I was employed to carry about, in oilskin baskets, nothing but deceptions – which soured my spirits and disturbed my confidence in human nature; and after that, I heard a world of discussions in this house, which soured my spirits fresh; and my opinion after all is, that, as a safe and comfortable sweetener of the same, and as a pleasant guide through life, there’s nothing like a nutmeg-grater.”

Clemency was about to offer a suggestion, but he stopped her by anticipating it.

“Com-bined,” he added gravely, “with a thimble.”

“Do as you wold, you know, and cetrer, eh!” observed Clemency, folding her arms comfortably in her delight at this avowal, and patting her elbows. “Such a short cut, an’t it?”

“I’m not sure,” said Mr. Britain, “that it’s what would be considered good philosophy. I’ve my doubts about that: but it wears well, and saves a quantity of snarling, which the genuine article don’t always.”

“See how you used to go on once, yourself, you know!” said Clemency.

“Ah!” said Mr. Britain. “But the most extraordinary thing, Clemmy, is that I should live to be brought round, through you. That’s the strange part of it. Through you! Why, I suppose you haven’t so much as half an idea in your head.”

Clemency, without taking the least offence, shook it, and laughed, and hugged herself, and said, “No, she didn’t suppose she had.”

“I’m pretty sure of it,” said Mr. Britain.

“Oh! I dare say you’re right,” said Clemency. “I don’t pretend to none. I don’t want any.”

Benjamin took his pipe from his lips, and laughed till the tears ran down his face. “What a natural you are, Clemmy!” he said, shaking his head, with an infinite relish of the joke, and wiping his eyes. Clemency, without the smallest inclination to dispute it, did the like, and laughed as heartily as he.

“But I can’t help liking you,” said Mr. Britain; “you’re a regular good creature in your way; so shake hands, Clem. Whatever happens, I’ll always take notice of you, and be a friend to you.”

“Will you?” returned Clemency. “Well! that’s very good of you.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Britain, giving her his pipe to knock the ashes out of; “I’ll stand by you. Hark! That’s a curious noise!”

“Noise!” repeated Clemency.

“A footstep outside. Somebody dropping from the wall, it sounded like,” said Britain. “Are they all abed up-stairs?”

“Yes, all abed by this time,” she replied.

“Didn’t you hear anything?”

“No.”

They both listened, but heard nothing.

“I tell you what,” said Benjamin, taking down a lantern. “I’ll have a look round before I go to bed myself, for satisfaction’s sake. Undo the door while I light this, Clemmy.”

Clemency complied briskly; but observed as she did so, that he would only have his walk for his pains, that it was all his fancy, and so forth. Mr. Britain said ‘very likely;’ but sallied out, nevertheless, armed with the poker, and casting the light of the lantern far and near in all directions.

“It’s as quiet as a churchyard,” said Clemency, looking after him; “and almost as ghostly too!”

Glancing back into the kitchen, she cried fearfully, as a light figure stole into her view, “What’s that!”

“Hush!” said Marion, in an agitated whisper. “You have always loved me, have you not!”

“Loved you, child! You may be sure I have.”

“I am sure. And I may trust you, may I not? There is no one else just now, in whom I can trust.”

“Yes,” said Clemency, with all her heart.

“There is some one out there,” pointing to the door, “whom I must see, and speak with, to-night. Michael Warden, for God’s sake retire! Not now!”

Clemency started with surprise and trouble as, following the direction of the speaker’s eyes, she saw a dark figure standing in the doorway.

“In another moment you may be discovered,” said Marion. “Not now! Wait, if you can, in some concealment. I will come, presently.”

He waved his hand to her, and was gone.

“Don’t go to bed. Wait here for me!” said Marion, hurriedly. “I have been seeking to speak to you for an hour past. Oh, be true to me!”

Eagerly seizing her bewildered hand, and pressing it with both her own to her breast – an action more expressive, in its passion of entreaty, than the most eloquent appeal in words, – Marion withdrew; as the light of the returning lantern flashed into the room.

“All still and peaceable. Nobody there. Fancy, I suppose,” said Mr. Britain, as he locked and barred the door. “One of the effects of having a lively imagination. Halloa! Why, what’s the matter?”

Clemency, who could not conceal the effects of her surprise and concern, was sitting in a chair: pale, and trembling from head to foot.

“Matter!” she repeated, chafing her hands and elbows, nervously, and looking anywhere but at him. “That’s good in you, Britain, that is! After going and frightening one out of one’s life with noises, and lanterns, and I don’t know what all. Matter! Oh, yes.”

“If you’re frightened out of your life by a lantern, Clemmy,” said Mr. Britain, composedly blowing it out and hanging it up again, “that apparition’s very soon got rid of. But you’re as bold as brass in general,” he said, stopping to observe her; “and were, after the noise and the lantern too. What have you taken into your head? Not an idea, eh?”

But as Clemency bade him good night very much after her usual fashion, and began to bustle about with a show of going to bed herself immediately, Little Britain, after giving utterance to the original remark that it was impossible to account for a woman’s whims, bade her good night in return, and taking up his candle strolled drowsily away to bed.

When all was quiet, Marion returned.

“Open the door,” she said; “and stand there close beside me, while I speak to him, outside.”

Timid as her manner was, it still evinced a resolute and settled purpose, such as Clemency could not resist. She softly unbarred the door: but before turning the key, looked round on the young creature waiting to issue forth when she should open it.

The face was not averted or cast down, but looking full upon her, in its pride of youth and beauty. Some simple sense of the slightness of the barrier that interposed itself between the happy home and honoured love of the fair girl, and what might be the desolation of that home, and shipwreck of its dearest treasure, smote so keenly on the tender heart of Clemency, and so filled it to overflowing with sorrow and compassion, that, bursting into tears, she threw her arms round Marion’s neck.

“It’s little that I know, my dear,” cried Clemency, “very little; but I know that this should not be. Think of what you do!”

“I have thought of it many times,” said Marion, gently.

“Once more,” urged Clemency. “Till to-morrow.”

Marion shook her head.

“For Mr. Alfred’s sake,” said Clemency, with homely earnestness. “Him that you used to love so dearly, once!”

She hid her face, upon the instant, in her hands, repeating “Once!” as if it rent her heart.

“Let me go out,” said Clemency, soothing her. “I’ll tell him what you like. Don’t cross the door-step to-night. I’m sure no good will come of it. Oh, it was an unhappy day when Mr. Warden was ever brought here! Think of your good father, darling: of your sister.”