She stopped for a moment, and fixed her dark, gloomy eyes on the

swarming floor, and shook off, with out a shudder, the hideous things

that crawled over her rich dress. She had scarcely looked at Sir Norman

since she began to speak, but he had done enough looking for them both,

never once taking his eyes from the handsome darkening face. He thought

how strangely like her story was to Leoline's--both shut in and isolated

from the outer world. Verily, destiny seemed to have woven the woof and

warp of their fates wonderfully together, for their lives were as

much the same as their faces. Miranda, having shook off her crawling

acquaintances, watched them glancing along the foul floor in the

Advertisement..

darkness, and went moodily on.

"It was three years ago when I was fifteen years old, as I told you,

that a change took place in my life. Up to that time, that miserable

dwarf was what people would call my guardian, and did not trouble me

much with his heavenly company. He was a great deal from our house,

sometimes absent for weeks together; and I remember I used to envy the

freedom with which he came and went, far more than I ever wondered where

he spent his precious time. I did not know then that he belonged to

the honorable profession of highwaymen, with variations of coining when

travelers were few and money scarce. He was then, and is still, at

the head of a formidable gang, over whom he wields most desperate

authority--as perhaps you have noticed during the brief and pleasant

period of your acquaintance."

"Really, madam, it struck me that your authority over them was much more

despotic than his," said Sir Norman, in all sincerity, feeling called

upon to give the--well, I'd rather not repeat the word, which is

generally spelled with a d and a dash--his due.

"No thanks to him for that! He would make me a slave now, as he did

then, if he dared, but he has found that, poor, trodden worm as I was, I

had life enough left to turn and sting."

"Which you do with a vengeance! Oh I you're a Tartar!" remarked Sir

Norman to himself. "The saints forefend that Leoline should be like

you in temper, as she is in history and face; for if she is, my life

promises to be a pleasant one."

"This rascally crew of cut-throats, whom his villainous highness

headed," said Miranda, "were an almost immense number then, being

divided in three bodies--London cut-purses, Hounslow Heath highwaymen,

and assistant-coiners, but all owning him for their lord and master.

He told me all this himself, one day when, in an after-dinner and most

gracious mood, he made a boasting display of his wealth and greatness;

told me I was growing up very pretty indeed, and that I was shortly to

be raised to the honor and dignity, and bliss of being his wife.




Most Popular