white marble led up from the middle of the hall,
but I hesitated about venturing to ascend this,
and once more repaired to the bell outside, and
repeated my summons. The loud clang re-echoed
through the arched hall, the open door gave a
responsive shake, and that was all. No one
came; everything was still as before. I was
rather chagrined at this. The personal
inconvenience was less offensive than the feeling how
foreigners would comment on such want of propriety,
what censures they would pass on such
an ill-arranged household. I rang again, this
time with an energy that made the door strike
some of the plaster from the wall, and, with a
noise like cannon, " What the hangman"—I
am translating—" is all this?" cried a voice
thick with passion; and on looking up I saw a
rather elderly man, with a quantity of curly
yellow hair, frowning savagely on me from
the balcony over the stair. He made no sign
of coming down, but gazed sternly at me from
his eminence.

"Can I see his excellency the minister?"
said I, with dignity.

"Not if you stop down there, not if you continue
to ring the bell like an alarm for fire, not
if you won't take the trouble to come up-stairs."

I slowly began the ascent at these words,
pondering what sort of a master such a man must
needs have. As I gained the top, I found myself
in front of a very short, very fat man, dressed
in a suit of striped gingham, like an over
plethoric zebra, and wheezing painfully, in part
from asthma, in part from agitation. He began
again:

""What the hangman do you mean by such a
row? Have you no manners, no education?
Where were you brought up that you enter a
dwelling-house like a city in storm?"

"Who is this insolent creature that dares to
address me in this wise? What ignorant menial
can have so far forgotten my rank and his
insignificance?"

"I'll tell you all that presently," said he;
"there's his excellency's bell." And he bustled
away, as fast as his unwieldy size would permit,
to his master's room.

I was outraged and indignant. There was I,
Potts—no, Pottinger— Algernon Sydney
Pottinger on my way to Italy and Greece, turning
from my direct road to consign, with safety a
despatch-bag which many a less conscientious
man would have chucked out of his carriage
window and forgotten—there I stood to be
insulted by a miserable stone-polishing, floor-scrubbing,
carpet-twigging Hausknecht! Was this to
be borne? was it to be endured? Was a man
of station, family, and attainments, to be the
object of such indignity?"

Just as I had uttered this speech aloud, a very
gentle voice addressed me, saying:

"Perhaps I can assist you? Will you be
good enough to say what you want?"

I started suddenly, looked up, and whom should
I see before me but that Miss Herbert, the
beautiful girl in deep mourning that I had met at
Milford, and who now, in the same pale loveliness,
turned on me a look of kind and gentle
meaning.

"Do you remember me?" said I, eagerly.
*' Do you remember the traveller— a pale young
man, with a Glengary cap and a plaid overcoat—
who met you at Milford?"

"Perfectly," said she, with a slight twitch
about the mouth like a struggle against a smile.
"Will you allow me to repay you now for your
politeness then? Do you wish to see his
excellency?"

I'm not very sure what it was I replied, but I
know well what was passing through my head.
If my thoughts could have spoken, it would have
been in this wise:

"Angel of loveliness, I don't care a brass
farthing for his excellency. It is not a matter of
the slightest moment to me if I ever set eyes on
him. Let me but speak to you, tell you the deep
impression you have made upon my heart; how,
in my ardour to serve you, I have already been
involved in an altercation that might have cost
me my life; how I still treasure up the few
minutes I passed beside you as the Elysian dream
of all my life—- "

"I arn certain, sir," broke she in while I
spoke— I repeat, I know not what " I am cer-
tain, sir, that you never came here to mention
all this to his excellency."

There was a severe gravity in the way that she
said these words tliat recalled me to myself, but
not to any consciousness of what I had been
saying; and so, in my utter discomfiture, I
blundered out something about the lost despatches
and the cause of my coming.

"If you'll wait a moment here," said she,
opening a door into a neatly furnished room,
"his excellency shall hear of your wish to see
him." And before I could answer, she was
gone.

I was now alone, but in what wild perplexity
and anxiety! How came she here? What
could be the meaning of her presence in this
place? The minister was an unmarried man, so
much my host had told me. How then reconcile
this fact with the presence of one who had left
England but a few days ago, as some said, to be
a governess or a companion? Oh, the agony of
my doubts, the terrible agony of my dire
misgivings! What a world of iniquity do we live
in, what vice and corruption are ever around us!
It was but a year or two ago, I remember, that
the Times newspaper had exposed the nefarious
schemes of a wretch who had deliberately
invented a plan to entrap those most unprotected
of all females. The adventures of this villain
had become part of the police literature of
Europe. Young and attractive creatures,
induced to come abroad by promises of the most
seductive kind, had been robbed by this man of
all they possessed, and deserted here and there
throughout the Continent. I was so
horror-stricken by the terrors my mind had so suddenly
conjured up, that I could not acquire the calm
and coolness requisite for a process of reasoning.
My over-active imagination, as usual, went off
with me, clearing obstacles with a sweeping