, Rip!" he said. "Nobody
blames you."

"Ah! you're very kind, Richard," interposed the wretch, moved at the
face of misery he beheld.

"Listen to me, Rip! I shall take her home to-night. Yes! If she's
happier away from me!--do you think me a brute, Ripton? Rather than have
her shed a tear, I'd!--I'll take her home to-night!"

Ripton suggested that it was sudden; adding from his larger experience,
people perhaps might talk.

The lover could not understand what they should talk about, but he said:
"If I give him who came for her yesterday the clue? If no one sees or
hears of me, what can they say? O Rip! I'll give her up. I'm wrecked
for ever! What of that? Yes--let them take her! The world in arms should
never have torn her from me, but when she cries--Yes! all's over. I'll
find him at once."

He searched in out-of-the-way corners for the hat of resolve. Ripton
looked on, wretcheder than ever.

The idea struck him:--"Suppose, Richard, she doesn't want to go?"

It was a moment when, perhaps, one who sided with parents and guardians
and the old wise world, might have inclined them to pursue their
righteous wretched course, and have given small Cupid a smack and
sent him home to his naughty Mother. Alas!(it is The Pilgrim's Scrip
interjecting) women are the born accomplices of mischief! In bustles
Mrs. Berry to clear away the refection, and finds the two knights
helmed, and sees, though 'tis dusk, that they wear doubtful brows, and
guesses bad things for her dear God Hymen in a twinkling.

"Dear! dear!" she exclaimed, "and neither of you eaten a scrap! And
there's my dear young lady off into the prettiest sleep you ever see!"

"Ha?" cried the lover, illuminated.

"Soft as a baby!" Mrs. Berry averred. "I went to look at her this very
moment, and there's not a bit of trouble in her breath. It come and it
go like the sweetest regular instrument ever made. The Black Ox haven't
trod on her foot yet! Most like it was the air of London. But only
fancy, if you had called in a doctor! Why, I shouldn't have let her take
any of his quackery. Now, there!"

Ripton attentively observed his chief, and saw him doff his hat with
a curious caution, and peer into its recess, from which, during Mrs.
Berry's speech, he drew forth a little glove--dropped there by some
freak of chance.

"Keep me, keep me, now you have me!" sang the little glove, and amused
the lover with a thousand conceits.

"When will she wake, do you think, Mr