ar Miss Sullivan; the bustle and disturbance
have agitated you too much, and you are ill."

"You are speaking truth. I am very ill; but I'll soon be better--I'll
soon be better. She feared nothing from me," added she, in a low
soliloquy; "an' could I let her outdo mo in generosity and kindness. Is
this fire? Is there fire in the coach?" she asked, in a loud voice; "or
is it lighthnin'? Oh, my head, my head; but it will soon be over."

"Compose yourself, I entreat of you, my dearest girl. What! good
Heavens, how is this? You have not been ill for any time? Your
hand--pardon me; you need not withdraw it so hastily--is quite burning
and fleshless. What is wrong?"

"Everything, sir, is wrong, unless that I am here, an' that is as it
ought to be. Ha, ha!"

"Good, my dearest girl--that consoles me again. Upon my honor, the old
Prophet shall not lose by this; on the contrary, I shall keep my word
like a prince, and at the Grey Stone shall he pocket, ere half an hour,
the reward of his allegiance to his liege lord. I have, for a long time,
had my eye on you, Miss Sullivan, an' when the Prophet assured me that
you had discarded Dalton for my sake, I could scarcely credit him, until
you confirmed the delightful fact, by transmitting me a tress of your
beautiful hair."

His companion made no reply to this, and the chaise went on for some
minutes without any further discourse. Henderson, at length, ventured to
put over his hand towards the corner in which his companion sat; but it
no sooner came in contact with her person, than he felt her shrinking,
as it were, from his very touch. With his usual complacent confidence,
however, in his own powers of attraction and strongly impressed,
besides, with a belief in his knowledge of the sex, he at once imputed
all this to caprice on the behalf of Mave, or rather to that assumption
of extreme delicacy, which is often resorted to, and overacted, when the
truthful and modest principle from which it should originate has ceased
to exist.

"Well, my dear girl," he proceeded, "I grant that all this is natural
enough--quite so--I know the step you have taken shows great strength
of character; for indeed it requires a very high degree of moral
courage and virtue in you, to set society and the whole world at perfect
defiance, for my sake; but, my dearest girl, don't be cast down--you are
not alone in this heroic sacrifice; not at all, believe me. You are not
the first who has made it for me;