s about her, and with a few long steps
noiselessly mounted the narrow stairs, and stood, sallow and terrible in
her sables, before the poor gentlewoman.

With two efforts Mrs. Mack got up and made a little, and then a great
courtesy, and then a little one again, and tried to speak, and felt very
near fainting.

'See,' says Mary Matchwell, 'I must have twenty pounds--but don't take
on. You must make an effort, my dear--'tis the last. Come, don't be cast
down. I'll pay you when I come to my property, in three weeks' time; but
law expenses must be paid, and the money I must have.'

Hereupon Mrs. Mack clasped her hands together in an agony, and 'set up
the pipes.'

M. M. was like to lose patience, and when she did she looked most
feloniously, and in a way that made poor soft Mrs. Mack quiver.

''Tis but twenty pounds, woman,' she said, sternly.
'Hub-bub-bub-boo-hoo-hoo,' blubbered the fat and miserable Mrs.
Macnamara. 'It will be all about--I may as well tell it myself. I'm
ruined! My Venetian lace--my watch--the brocade not made up. It won't
do. I must tell my brother; I'd rather go out for a charwoman and starve
myself to a skeleton, than try to borrow more money.'

Mrs. Matchwell advanced her face towards the widow's tearful
countenance, and held her in the spell of her dreadful gaze as a cat
does a bird.

'Why, curse you, woman, do you think 'tis to rob you I mean?--'tisn't a
present even--only a loan. Stop that blubbering, you great old mouth! or
I'll have you posted all over the town in five minutes. A _loan_, Madam;
and you need not pay it for three months--three whole months--_there_!'

Well, this time it ended as heretofore--poor Mrs. Mack gave way. She had
not a crown-piece, indeed, that she could call her own; but M. M. was
obliging, and let her off for a bill of exchange, the nature of which,
to her dying day, the unhappy widow could never comprehend, although it
caused her considerable affliction some short time subsequently.

Away went Mary Matchwell with her prize, leaving an odour of brandy
behind her. Her dingy and sinister squire performed his clumsy
courtesies, and without looking to the right or left, climbed into the
coach after her, with his red trunk in his hand; and the vehicle was
again in motion, and jingling on at a fair pace in the direction of
Nutter's house, The Mills, where her last visit had ended so tragically.

Now, it so happened that just as this coach, with its sombre occupant