back upon my conduct now with blushes. I always
liked him. I felt that he was not to me what the crowd of young men who
had made proposals had been, but something very different. Then what
right had I to refuse him three times?'

'It was a severe trial of his fidelity, no doubt,' said Ruth.

'My dear,' returned Miss Pecksniff. 'It was wrong. But such is the
caprice and thoughtlessness of our sex! Let me be a warning to you.
Don't try the feelings of any one who makes you an offer, as I have
tried the feelings of Augustus; but if you ever feel towards a person
as I really felt towards him, at the very time when I was driving him
to distraction, let that feeling find expression, if that person throws
himself at your feet, as Augustus Moddle did at mine. Think,' said Miss
Pecksniff, 'what my feelings would have been, if I had goaded him to
suicide, and it had got into the papers!'

Ruth observed that she would have been full of remorse, no doubt.

'Remorse!' cried Miss Pecksniff, in a sort of snug and comfortable
penitence. 'What my remorse is at this moment, even after making
reparation by accepting him, it would be impossible to tell you! Looking
back upon my giddy self, my dear, now that I am sobered down and
made thoughtful, by treading on the very brink of matrimony; and
contemplating myself as I was when I was like what you are now; I
shudder. I shudder. What is the consequence of my past conduct? Until
Augustus leads me to the altar he is not sure of me. I have blighted and
withered the affections of his heart to that extent that he is not sure
of me. I see that preying on his mind and feeding on his vitals. What
are the reproaches of my conscience, when I see this in the man I love!'

Ruth endeavoured to express some sense of her unbounded and flattering
confidence; and presumed that she was going to be married soon.

'Very soon indeed,' returned Miss Pecksniff. 'As soon as our house is
ready. We are furnishing now as fast as we can.'

In the same vein of confidence Miss Pecksniff ran through a general
inventory of the articles that were already bought with the articles
that remained to be purchased; what garments she intended to be married
in, and where the ceremony was to be performed; and gave Miss Pinch, in
short (as she told her), early and exclusive information on all points
of interest connected with the event.

While this was going forward in the rear, Tom and Mr Moddle walked on,
arm in arm, in th