scene of recognition and meeting, had been arrested on the threshold by
Dr. Pemberton himself.

Either to allow a full explanation between two long-parted lovers, or to
conceal his own emotion and get back his customary calm, our dear doctor
had seen fit to step into the front-study for a few minutes, and he
checked Mr. Burress, with his hand on the door-knob, with some very
natural questions as to the mode and time of our meeting, and ended by
requiring his presence at the slight collation he ordered at once.

The part the worthy apothecary had played in my closing adventure; the
certainty that to his zeal and promptness I owed my immunity from
further captivity--for, had I walked around the square in the usual
way, the men at watch from the carriage-windows must have espied and
seized me--or, had we loitered in the alley, and arrived a moment later
at the central house of Kendrick Row, there is no doubt that they would
have been there to await my arrival, nor could Mr. Burress have saved me
from their clutches--the whole thing seemed especially providential;
but, as the efficient medium of each mercy, Napoleon B. Burress did,
indeed, seem to all present crowned with a perfect nimbus of glory. Dr.
Pemberton led him back to my presence with his arm encircling his
shoulder; Captain Wentworth shook his hand mutely but long, with his
eyes dimmed with tears, and words that found imperfect utterance, at
last compelling him to strange silence.

"I thank you, I bless you," he said, at last. "I do not hope to be able
to return such services, but, what I _can do_, command."

"And I to think that she was crazy all the time; escaped from the great
asylum a mile away. Sweetest creature, too, I ever saw in my life; and
Caleb thought so, too."

The speaker brushed a briny drop or two from his eyes with the back of
his hand as he spoke; then, smiling archly, asked:

"Can you forgive me, miss, for belying you so, even in thought? You see,
I have made a clean breast of it now; but such a pity!"

"Forgive you?" And I advanced toward him, and put both my hands in one
of his large white extremities, and, before I knew what I was doing, I
had stooped over and kissed it, and was bathing it with my tears.

"O miss! this is too much; it is, indeed!" said Napoleon B., blushing
to the roots of his hair, and withdrawing his hand with a
slightly-mortified air; "you nonplus me completely."

"You see she was too much overcome, Mr. Burress