besides the natural compassion and sadness
moved in his heart by what he heard, Isaac
felt within him some mysterious influence
att work all the time the woman was speaking,
which utterly confused his ideas and almost
deprived him of his powers of speech. All
that he could say in answer to her last reckless
words was, that he would prevent her
from attempting her own life, if he followed
her about all night to do it. His rough,
trembling earnestness seemed to impress
her.

"I won't occasion you that trouble," she
answered, when he repeated his threat.
"You have given me a fancy for living by
speaking kindly to me. No need for the
mockery of protestations and promises. You
may believe me without them. Come to
Fuller's Meadow to-morrow at twelve, and
you will find me alive, to answer for myself.
No!--no money. My ninepence will do to
get me as good a night's lodging as I want."

She nodded and left him. He made no
attempt to follow—he felt no suspicion that
she was deceiving him.

"It's strange, but I can't help believing
her," he said to himself—and walked away,
bewildered, towards home.

On entering the house his mind was still
so completely absorbed by its new subject of
interest, that he took no notice of what his
mother was doing when he came in with the
bottle of medicine. She had opened her old
writing-desk in his absence, and was now
reading a paper attentively that lay inside it.
On every birthday of Isaac's since she had
written down the particulars of his dream
from his own lips, she had been accustomed
to read that same paper, and ponder over it
in private.

The next day he went to Fuller's Meadow.
He had done only right in believing her so
implicitly—she was there, punctual to a
minute, to answer for herself. The last-left
faint defences in Isaac's heart against the
fascination which a word or look from her
began inscrutably to exercise over him, sank
down and vanished before her for ever on
that memorable morning.

When a man, previously insensible to the
influence of women, forms an attachment in
middle life, the instances are rare indeed, let
the warning circumstances be what they may,
in which he is found capable of freeing
himself from the tyranny of the new ruling
passion. The charm of being spoken to
familiarly, fondly, and gratefully by a woman
whose language and manners still retained
enough of their early refinement to hint at
the high social station that she had lost,
would have been a dangerous luxury to a
man of Isaac's rank at the age of twenty.
But it was far more than that—it was certain
ruin to him—now that his heart was opening
unworthily to a new influence, at that middle
time of life when strong feelings of all kinds,
once implanted, strike root most stubbornly
in a man's moral nature. A few more stolen
interviews after that first morning in Fuller's
Meadow completed his infatuation. In
less than a month from the time when he
first met her, Isaac Scatchard had consented
to give Rebecca Murdoch a new interest in
existence, and a chance of recovering the
character she had lost, by promising to make
her his wife.

She had taken possession, not of his passions
only, but of his faculties as well. All arrangements
for the present and all plans for the
future were of her devising. All the mind
he had he put into her keeping. She directed
him on every point; even instructing him
how to break the news of his approaching
marriage in the safest manner to his mother.

"If you tell her how you met me and who
I am at first," said the cunning woman, " she
will move heaven and earth to prevent our
marriage. Say I am the sister of one of your
fellow-servants—ask her to see me before
you go into any more particulars—and leave
it to me to do the rest. I want to make her
love me next best to you, Isaac, before she
knows anything of who I really am."

The motive of the deceit was sufficient to
sanctify it to Isaac. The stratagem proposed
relieved him of his one great anxiety, and
quieted his uneasy conscience on the subject
of his mother: Still, there was something
wanting to perfect his happiness, something
that he could not realise, something
mysteriously untraceable, and yet, something
that perpetually made itself felt; not when
he was absent from Rebecca Murdoch, but,
strange to say, when he was actually in
her presence! She was kindness itself
with him; she never made him feel his
inferior capacities, and inferior manners,—she
showed the sweetest anxiety to please him in
the smallest trifles; but, in spite of all these
attractions, he never could feel quite at his
ease with her. At their first meeting, there
had mingled with his admiration when he
looked in her face, a faint involuntary feeling
of doubt whether that face was entirely
strange to him. No after familiarity had
the slightest effect on this inexplicable,
wearisome uncertainty.

Concealing the truth as he had been
directed, he announced his marriage engagement
precipitately and confusedly to his
mother, on the day when he contracted it.
Poor Mrs. Scatchard showed her perfect
confidence in her son by flinging her arms
round his neck, and giving him joy of
having found at last, in the sister of one of
his fellow-servants, a woman to comfort
and care for him after his mother was
gone. She was all eagerness to see the
woman of her son's choice; and the next day
was fixed for the introduction.

It was a bright sunny morning, and the
little cottage parlour was full of light, as
Mrs. Scatchard, happy and expectant,
dressed for the occasion in her Sunday gown,