, if he chooses to blow! But I
forget--God bless me, you are as pale as the ghost of Pompey, at
Philippi!--Caleb, the Perkins elixir--a glass!--Now, young lady, just
take it down at a gulp. It is the only alcoholic preparation that
Napoleon Bonaparte Burress ever suffered to pass his temperate lips.
Father Matthew does not object to it at all, I am told, on emergencies.
It may be had at this repository very low, either by the gross or
dozen."--speaking the last words mechanically, and he tendered me a
small glass of some nauseous, bittersweet, and potent beverage, that
coursed through my veins like liquid fire.

"Thank you; it _is_ very comforting," I gasped, and, setting the glass
down on the counter, I covered my face with my hands and burst into
tears.

The whole forlornness of my outcast and eleemosynary condition rushed
over me simultaneously with the flood of warmth caused by the Perkins
elixir, which nerved me the next moment for the encounter with the
elements.

I saw the kindly master of the emporium turn away, either to conceal his
own emotion or his observation of mine, and Caleb stood trembling and
crying like a girl before me.

I had shrunk, it may be remembered, from the description Sabra gave me
of McDermot, when I heard of his red hair and "chaney-blue eyes;" but to
this red-haired, hazel-eyed man I yearned instinctively, for there are
moral differences discernible in the temperament greater than any other,
and, when a red-haired man is tender-hearted, he usually usurps the
womanly prerogative, and gushes.

But Caleb's sympathy touched me even more.

"We will go now, if you please," I said, recovering myself by a strong
effort, and Napoleon B. Burress mutely tendered me his stout,
overcoated arm. "The short way you mentioned--let us go that way, if not
disagreeable to you," I pleaded.

"Oh, no; it will be an absolute saving of time to me; but, I warn you,
the alley is narrow and dark!"

"Never mind; I prefer the short cut, be it what it may. Time is every
thing to me."

We passed through the shop, threaded a narrow entry, opened a back-door,
which gave upon a strip of paved yard, leading in turn to a back-gate,
through which we emerged into a dark and dirty-looking alley.

But first the work of unlocking a padlock, which confined a chain, had
to be effected, and, while Mr. N.B. Burress was thus unfastening his
back-gate preparatory to egress, I stood gazing back, Eurydice-like, in
the place