thought
of the new dress for herself and for Isabel; but her spirit, in her deep
unhappiness, felt sick and faint within her.

Wilson, meanwhile, had flown to Joyce's room, and was exercising her
dearly beloved tongue in an exaggerated account of the matter--how Miss
Carlyle put upon my lady, and had forbidden a new dress to her, as well
as the frock to Miss Isabel.

And yet a few more days passed on.

CHAPTER XXIV.

RICHARD HARE AT MR. DILL'S WINDOW.

Bright was the moon on that genial Monday night, bright was the evening
star, as they shone upon a solitary wayfarer who walked on the shady
side of the road with his head down, as though he did not care to court
observation. A laborer, apparently, for he wore a smock-frock and had
hobnails in his shoes; but his whiskers were large and black, quite
hiding the lower part of his face, and his broad-brimmed "wide-awake"
came far over his brows. He drew near the dwelling of Richard Hare,
Esq., plunged rapidly over some palings, after looking well to the right
and to the left, into a field, and thence over the side wall into Mr.
Hare's garden, where he remained amidst the thick trees.

Now, by some mischievous spirit of intuition or contrariety, Justice
Hare was spending this evening at home, a thing he did not do once in
six months unless he had friends with him. Things in real life do mostly
go by the rules of contrary, as children say in their play, holding the
corners of the handkerchief, "Here we go round and round by the rules of
contrary; if I tell you to hold fast, you must loose; if I tell you
to loose, you must hold fast." Just so in the play of life. When we want
people to "hold fast," they "loose;" and when we want them to "loose,"
they "hold fast."

Barbara, anxious, troubled, worn out almost with the suspense of looking
and watching for her brother, feeling a feverish expectation that
night would bring him--but so had she felt for the two or three nights
past--would have given her hand for her father to go out. But no--things
were going by the rule of contrary. There sat the stern justice in full
view of the garden and the grove, his chair drawn precisely in front of
the window, his wig awry, and a long pipe in his mouth.

"Are you not going out, Richard?" Mrs. Hare ventured to say.

"No."

"Mamma, shall I ring for the shutters to be closed?" asked Barbara, by
and by.

"Shutters closed?" said the justice. "Who'd shut out this bright moon?
You h