e drawing-room sideboard. But Mr.
Huntingdon had lingered behind the rest. He was just at the foot of the
stairs when I opened the door, and hearing my step in the hall--though I
could hardly hear it myself--he instantly turned back.

'Helen, is that you?' said he. 'Why did you run away from us?'

'Good-night, Mr. Huntingdon,' said I, coldly, not choosing to answer the
question. And I turned away to enter the drawing-room.

'But you'll shake hands, won't you?' said he, placing himself in the
doorway before me. And he seized my hand and held it, much against my
will.

'Let me go, Mr. Huntingdon,' said I. 'I want to get a candle.'

'The candle will keep,' returned he.

I made a desperate effort to free my hand from his grasp.

'Why are you in such a hurry to leave me, Helen?' he said, with a smile
of the most provoking self-sufficiency. 'You don't hate me, you know.'

'Yes, I do--at this moment.'

'Not you. It is Annabella Wilmot you hate, not me.'

'I have nothing to do with Annabella Wilmot,' said I, burning with
indignation.

'But I have, you know,' returned he, with peculiar emphasis.

'That is nothing to me, sir,' I retorted.

'Is it nothing to you, Helen? Will you swear it? Will you?'

'No I won't, Mr. Huntingdon! and I will go,' cried I, not knowing whether
to laugh, or to cry, or to break out into a tempest of fury.

'Go, then, you vixen!' he said; but the instant he released my hand he
had the audacity to put his arm round my neck, and kiss me.

Trembling with anger and agitation, and I don't know what besides, I
broke away, and got my candle, and rushed up-stairs to my room. He would
not have done so but for that hateful picture. And there he had it still
in his possession, an eternal monument to his pride and my humiliation.

It was but little sleep I got that night, and in the morning I rose
perplexed and troubled with the thoughts of meeting him at breakfast. I
knew not how it was to be done. An assumption of dignified, cold
indifference would hardly do, after what he knew of my devotion--to his
face, at least. Yet something must be done to check his presumption--I
would not submit to be tyrannised over by those bright, laughing eyes.
And, accordingly, I received his cheerful morning salutation as calmly
and coldly as my aunt could have wished, and defeated with brief answers
his one or two attempts to draw me into conversation, while I comported
myself with unusual cheerfuln