artlingly view the
result of her gauzy pretence at somnambulism, and the man, in his
night-shirt, his limp night-cap dangling from his neck upon his
shoulder, the ring of stubby gray hair around his head raised by
excitement until it almost hid the glistening baldness above, his legs
bare below the knees, but with a face so full of virtuous resentment at
the scandalous and shallow scheme of the woman to implicate him in
something disgraceful, that his uprightness clothed him as with fine
raiment--would have been to have witnessed the apotheosis of sublimely
triumphant virtue and the defeat of shame.

"What have _I_ been trying to do with _you_?" shouted the now enraged
Bristol; "that's all very fine; but what have _you_ been trying to do
with _me_, madam?"

"Why, didn't I ever tell you that I often walk in my sleep?" she asked
with apparent innocence; and then, as if noticing for the first time how
meagrely both herself and her companion were clad, gave vent to a
half-smothered "Oh!--shame on you, Mr. Bristol!" and broke away from
him, running into her own room, while Bristol, after walking back and
forth in a state of high nervous excitement for some time, muttering,
and shaking his fist towards her room, finally smoothed his rebellious
locks so as to admit of the readjustment of his night-cap, and trotted
fiercely to bed, never more to be disturbed by sleep-walking female
Spiritualists.

There was nothing in all this save a quite common and silly attempt on
the part of the adventuress to get some of the hard-earned money of
which she thought he was possessed, and it disgusted her that he was no
more appreciative than to look upon her charms, that had set the heads
of so many other men all awhirl, with such a cool and impressionless
regard for them.

This latter fact bothered her probably fully as much as in not being
able to get at his bank account, and she finally settled into a sort of
suspicious dislike of him, and turned her attention to Fox, who, being a
quiet sort of a fellow, with less brusqueness than Bristol, was not so
well fitted to keep her at arm's length, and was consequently
immediately the recipient of her torrent-like attentions, caresses, and
confidence.

A book-keeper was the next thing to a retired banker--sometimes even
better off, Mrs. Winslow thought; and, believing that Fox was the
book-keeper he represented himself to be, she conceived the idea of
travelling during the pendency of the s