their guest to the care of her aunt for the
remainder of the evening.

Polly had expected an effect of some sort from
this forced move, but nothing so violent as it did
produce. The young man turned deadly white,
like one stricken with a sudden terror. The
quickened throbbing of his heart was painfully
visible. Weakened by recent illness, and with
a nervous system wrought to the extreme point
of sensibility, it seemed as if but a slight shock
was necessary to reduce him to a condition as
pitiable as that from which he had so recently
emerged. But there was no help for it. The
very violence of his emotion only suggested more
clearly to Polly the desirability of at once handing
over her susceptible love-patient to calmer
care. Could there be a fitter doctress than Miss
Serocold? Polly-my-Lamb gave him one pleasant
smile, and vanished.

"Dear girl! how thoughtful of her!" was
Miss Serocold's reflection. "Now, my young
friend, you may speak freely, as I know well
enough you have been dying to do."

The words had scarcely framed themselves in
her thought, when Arthur Haggerdorn was at
her feet: kissing her hands, calling her his
hope, his blessing, his guardian angel, imploring
her pity, heaping epithet on epithet, such as
nothing but idolatrous affection could suggest.

Miss Serocold, not absolutely taken by surprise,
was startled at the vehemence of the young
lover. She drew her hand coyly away.

"This sudden passion, sir——"

"Sudden! It is twenty-four, forty years of
growing!"

(" How did he guess my age?" thought my
aunt.)

"A sousand years it has lived, in zese six
weeks," continued the suitor. " ' Passion,' saidst
you? It is madness. It is Dess! I tell you I
sall die if you withdraw zis face, which has killed
everything else in ze world!"

"Compose yourself, I entreat you, sir; I have
not said that I intended to withdraw it," said my
aunt, gently. " Pray be calm. This excessive
agitation may be injurious. It is somewhat
embarrassing— I— I am inclined to wish my niece
had not left us!"

"I also, wiz all my heart," cried the young
gentleman. "Recal her, I beseech you, best
madam."

"I will endeavour to do so, since you desire
it, sir," said my aunt, rather stiffly.

"Desire it? O, my best madam, you guessed
my secret well. You found what was ze matter
wiz me, and, your tender heart provided ze's
comfort. To-morrow I from London certainly
go."

"To-morrow!"

"Surely, to-morrow. Why stay? I have
looked on my angel. I have heard her voice. I
have her fingers felt. I am ready now to die."

Miss Serocold felt inclined to suggest that an
increased disposition to live might be a more
legitimate result of these successes. All she
said was: "You really leave London tomorrow?"

"And also England, best lady."

"Permit me then to ask you," said the lady,
"might it not have been better to postpone these
singular declarations till your return?"

"I return never," replied the lover, emphatically.

"I do not think I quite understand you, Mr.
Haggerdorn. Are you evincing a becoming
consideration for the feelings of— of others, in expressing
your own, thus strongly, under the
circumstances you mention? What if you had
obtained an even more explicit assurance that
your overtures might be acceptable——"

"My dear lady! Acceptable? Is zis then
possible? But no— no——"

' No, by all means, if you prefer it, sir," said
my aunt, turning her head aside, a little coquettishly.

"You will drive me mad wiz joy! I possessed
one sousand terrors. I shall name them. First,
that being both so young——"

"One of us might be older," thought Miss
Serocold, gazing tenderly on the boyish face.

"A stranger, an orphan——"

"Such are commended to our ch—charity,"
sobbed my aunt.

"A beggar."

"I am far from penniless."

"How satisfying is that! I rejoice wiz my
heart to hear it."

"Perhaps you do," was the mental comment.

"In spite of all, you bid me hope? And she,
she will then suffer that I zee her?"

"I beg your pardon?" said my aunt.

"She shall hear my vows?"

"Your——"

"Vows, excellent madam."

"Of what nature, may I be allowed——"

"Great Heavens, madam! Have I not said
she is my life, my goddess, my——"

"She!"

"Have I not been pouring my gratitudes to
you, for bringing me to gaze so near upon her
glorious beauty? Do I not already love you as
my mother, best lady?"

The shock was severe. Such a castle, however
unstable its foundations, can hardly topple
down without occasioning a sensation of something
having fallen about one's ears. But the
absurdity of her position, should the mistake become
apparent, flashed across my aunt's mind, and,
as it were, lighted up the way of escape. She had
in no way committed herself. Her looks and language,
though intended to convey a meaning of
their own, had somehow been caught up in the
torrent of the young man's passion, and borne
away in a totally different direction. My aunt
accepted it, with a sigh.

"You hesitate, dear lady. Will you destroy
the hopes you raised?" asked the young lover,
becoming greatly agitated. "Now that you
have spoken, zat is too late. Better madness;
better dess!" His hand closed involuntarily on