sible did it appear to touch the inmates of this
house with concern on my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my
wants and woes--to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As
I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last
idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah opened.

"What do you want?" she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed
me by the light of the candle she held.

"May I speak to your mistresses?" I said.

"You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come
from?"

"I am a stranger."

"What is your business here at this hour?"

"I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of
bread to eat."

Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face. "I'll
give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we can't take
in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely."

"Do let me speak to your mistresses."

"No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about
now; it looks very ill."

"But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?"

"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don't do
wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go--"

"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don't
shut the door:--oh, don't, for God's sake!"

"I must; the rain is driving in--"

"Tell the young ladies. Let me see them--"

"Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't
make such a noise. Move off."

"But I must die if I am turned away."

"Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about
folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any
followers--housebreakers or such like--anywhere near, you may tell them
we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and
guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and
bolted it within.

This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering--a throe of true
despair--rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another
step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned--I wrung my
hands--I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this
last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation--this
banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of
fortitude was gone--at least for a moment; but the last I soon
endeavoured to regain.

"I can but die,"