as! I could offer no more: I had barely sufficient
remaining for the probable expenses of the journey.

What trembling joy it was when the little wicket closed behind us, as we
issued from the park! Then, for one moment, I paused, to inhale one
draught of that cool, bracing air, and venture one look back upon the
house. All was dark and still: no light glimmered in the windows, no
wreath of smoke obscured the stars that sparkled above it in the frosty
sky. As I bade farewell for ever to that place, the scene of so much
guilt and misery, I felt glad that I had not left it before, for now
there was no doubt about the propriety of such a step--no shadow of
remorse for him I left behind. There was nothing to disturb my joy but
the fear of detection; and every step removed us further from the chance
of that.

We had left Grassdale many miles behind us before the round red sun arose
to welcome our deliverance; and if any inhabitant of its vicinity had
chanced to see us then, as we bowled along on the top of the coach, I
scarcely think they would have suspected our identity. As I intend to be
taken for a widow, I thought it advisable to enter my new abode in
mourning: I was, therefore, attired in a plain black silk dress and
mantle, a black veil (which I kept carefully over my face for the first
twenty or thirty miles of the journey), and a black silk bonnet, which I
had been constrained to borrow of Rachel, for want of such an article
myself. It was not in the newest fashion, of course; but none the worse
for that, under present circumstances. Arthur was clad in his plainest
clothes, and wrapped in a coarse woollen shawl; and Rachel was muffled in
a grey cloak and hood that had seen better days, and gave her more the
appearance of an ordinary though decent old woman, than of a lady's-maid.

Oh, what delight it was to be thus seated aloft, rumbling along the
broad, sunshiny road, with the fresh morning breeze in my face,
surrounded by an unknown country, all smiling--cheerfully, gloriously
smiling in the yellow lustre of those early beams; with my darling child
in my arms, almost as happy as myself, and my faithful friend beside me:
a prison and despair behind me, receding further, further back at every
clatter of the horses' feet; and liberty and hope before! I could hardly
refrain from praising God aloud for my deliverance, or astonishing my
fellow-passengers by some surprising outburst of hilarity.

But the jour