ld about us; how
loudly have we abused the times and our neighbours! All this devil's
logic did Mrs. Catherine, lying wakeful in her bed on the night of the
Marylebone fete, exert in gloomy triumph.

It must, however, be confessed, that nothing could be more just than
Mrs. Hayes's sense of her husband's scoundrelism and meanness; for if
we have not proved these in the course of this history, we have proved
nothing. Mrs. Cat had a shrewd observing mind; and if she wanted for
proofs against Hayes, she had but to look before and about her to find
them. This amiable pair were lying in a large walnut-bed, with faded
silk furniture, which had been taken from under a respectable old
invalid widow, who had become security for a prodigal son; the room was
hung round with an antique tapestry (representing Rebecca at the Well,
Bathsheba Bathing, Judith and Holofernes, and other subjects from Holy
Writ), which had been many score times sold for fifty pounds, and bought
back by Mr. Hayes for two, in those accommodating bargains which he made
with young gentlemen, who received fifty pounds of money and fifty of
tapestry in consideration of their hundred-pound bills. Against this
tapestry, and just cutting off Holofernes's head, stood an enormous
ominous black clock, the spoil of some other usurious transaction. Some
chairs, and a dismal old black cabinet, completed the furniture of this
apartment: it wanted but a ghost to render its gloom complete.

Mrs. Hayes sat up in the bed sternly regarding her husband. There is,
be sure, a strong magnetic influence in wakeful eyes so examining a
sleeping person (do not you, as a boy, remember waking of bright summer
mornings and finding your mother looking over you? had not the gaze of
her tender eyes stolen into your senses long before you woke, and cast
over your slumbering spirit a sweet spell of peace, and love, and fresh
springing joy?) Some such influence had Catherine's looks upon her
husband: for, as he slept under them, the man began to writhe about
uneasily, and to burrow his head in the pillow, and to utter quick,
strange moans and cries, such as have often jarred one's ear while
watching at the bed of the feverish sleeper. It was just upon six, and
presently the clock began to utter those dismal grinding sounds, which
issue from clocks at such periods, and which sound like the death-rattle
of the departing hour. Then the bell struck the knell of it; and with
this Mr. Hayes awoke, a