he comes to kill my heart."
--_Shakspeare_.

OLD MAURICE, the pastry-cook, had welcomed his daughter gladly, as one
returned from the grave, and had learned from her own lips, with mingled
tears of joy and gratitude, how, thanks to noble Harry Oaklands, she had
escaped unscathed from the perils and temptations to which she had been
exposed; many days had elapsed, the Long Vacation had commenced, and the
ancient town of Cambridge, no longer animated by the countless throngs
of gownsmen, frowned in its unaccustomed solitude, like some City of the
Dead, and still no hostile message came from Wilford. Various reports
were circulated concerning the reappearance of Lizzie Maurice; but none
of them bore the faintest resemblance to the truth, and to no one had
the possibility of Oaklands' interference in the matter occurred, save,
as it afterwards appeared, to Charles Archer.

For above a week Wilford was confined to his room, seeing only
Wentworth; and it was given out that he had met with a severe fall from
his horse, and was ordered to keep perfectly quiet. At the expiration
of that period he quitted Cambridge suddenly, leaving no clue to his
whereabouts. This strange conduct scarcely excited any surprise amongst
the set he moved in, as it was usually his habit to shroud all his
proceedings under a veil of secrecy, assumed, as some imagined, for
the purpose of enhancing the mysterious and unaccountable influence he
delighted to exercise over the minds of men.

Oaklands remained a few days at Cambridge after Wilford's departure, as
he said, to pack up, but, as I felt certain, to prevent the possibility
of Wilford's imagining that he was anxious in any way to avoid him.
Finding at length that his rooms were dismantled, and that he would
not in all probability return till the end of the Long Vacation, Harry
ceased to trouble his head any further about the matter, and we set off
for Heathfield, accompanied by Archer, whom Harry had invited to pay him
a visit.

We found all well at our respective homes; my mother appeared much
stronger, and was actually growing quite stout, for her; and Fanny
looked so pretty, that I was not surprised at the very particular
attentions paid her from the first moment of his introduction by the
volatile Archer (who, by the way, was a regular male flirt), attentions
which I was pleased to perceive she appreciated exactly at their proper
value. We soon fell into our old habits again, Oak