the first—that I was insensible to the
hatred and contempt you dared to feel
towards a woman every way your superior?
—your disparagement of me to your simple
fool of a father?—your arts and wiles to
defeat my marriage? No, girl. I knew
them all. It was a doubtful battle, but
you are defeated, and I have you prisoner,
bound and fettered. I hate you. Do you
hear? Your shame and sufferings are of
my invention. I took this solitary den, I
hired this truculent woman to help me
to humble your proud heart, destroy your
beauty, degrade you, body and soul, at my
feet. Yes, my pet—my 'pussy,' as you
loved to be called—the 'mermaid' has got
the better of the cat, and she cannot save
her glossy skin! To your keeper!"

Geraldine had scarcely heard the
concluding words. Stricken with surprise
and terror, she had stink in a senseless
heap on the floor.

A severe illness followed, of which
she remembered little. When she
recovered, a change had come over her whole
being. Her loveliness had faded, but the
change in her whole system was more
touching still. Her high spirit had
departed. Oppressed and hopeless, she
submitted wearily to any tyranny the two
women chose to inflict.

At length even Mrs. Manning, the impassive,
began to tire. She had, at least, the
doubtful merit of disliking non-resistance.
As a beast of prey, she was of that nobler
sort that prefers a hunt and a scuflle.

Passing near Greraldine's room, one day,
and fancying she heard her voice, she
looked in. The inmate was kneeling at the
window, her thin hands clasping the bars.

"What are you doing, my dear?" inquired
the governess, tenderer than usual,
she knew not why.

Geraldine turned her white worn face to
her.

"Trying to forgive you!" she answered.

Her governess looked fixedly at her, and
retired without a word.

Five minutes later she walked, with her
usual measured stateliness, into the drawing-
room.

"I am sorry," she said to Mrs. Fonnereau,
"to seem abrupt, but I leave you
this day."

"To return—when?"

"Never."

"Never? And—the money—the three
hundred?"

"Is here," said Mrs. Manning, placing
some notes upon the table, with her habitual
grace—" excepting only the wages of an
upper domestic, which I have ventured to
retain. I may be an instrument of severity;
my necessities may have tempted me to
become one of revenge; but I am opposed,
on principle, to murder; and, with
permission, these words shall be our last."

She curtseyed, and, in ten minutes, had
quitted Leafy Dell.

"It matters not," said Melusina, to herself.
"Money saved. I can manage her
alone, now."

Let us draw the veil over the cruelty
that ensued. It is possible that Mrs.
Manning's sinister augury might have been
fulfilled. But rescue was at hand, and
coming fast, from an unexpected quarter.

The reader may remember the name of
a certain Lieutenant Haldimand, R.N.,
who, at a certain pic-nic, had made the
acquaintance of Miss Fonnereau. He had
never forgotten the beautiful girl, and,
with a constancy rarely seen in these later
times, embraced the very first opportunity
to revisit the isle that contained his
treasure. He traced her to the convent. He
traced her to Leafy Dell. While devising
means for renewing his acquaintance,
hitherto of the slightest, with the inmates
of that residence, he, as by special
providence, fell in with Alice Corham,
Geraldine's faithful maid, who, in consequence
of some dark rumour concerning her
beloved mistress, was hovering in the
neighbourhood, hoping to obtain information.

That which she had to communicate so
startled and alarmed young Haldimand,
that, being a man of action, he rode
straightway to Leafy Dell, and, entering
almost unopposed, presented himself to
Mrs. Fonnereau, as one charged with a
mission to her step-daughter, with whom
he politely begged an interview.

Melusina, on account of the "dear girl's"
health, was compelled to refuse; but did
so in her sweetest manner, and exercised
so many fascinations, that the young man,
puzzled, bewildered, and half admiring,
began to think his informant in error, and,
a little ashamed at having so misjudged
the still beautiful creature before him,
took reluctant leave.

"What fools are men!" soliloquised the
victorious Melusina, as she gazed at her
own face in the mirror that night, La
Parense caressing her hair. "He has been
idolising that miserable thing above: he
showed me his errand and his heart at
once! And for all that, I could win him
from her. I!—ah! that would be the