"did you see his teeth---how
sharp!" I gnashed them with a vengeance all the while, you may be sure.

CHAPTER VI

The last and worst humiliation was yet to come--that which put me for a
long season out of humour with all human and woman nature. Conscious
of an unusual degree of bustle without, I was suddenly startled by
sounds of a voice that had been once pleasingly familiar. It was that
of a female, a clear, soft, transparent sound, which, till this moment,
had never been associated in my thoughts with any thing but the most
perfect of all mortal melodies. It was now jangled harsh, like "sweet
bells out of tune." The voice was that of Emmeline. "Good heavens!" I
exclaimed to myself--"can she be here?" In another instant, I heard
that of Susannah--the meek Susannah,--she too was among the curious to
examine the features of the bedlamite, Archy Dargan. "Dear me," said
Emmeline, "is he in that place?"

"What a horrid place!" said Susannah.

"It's the very place for such a horrid creature," responded Emmeline.

"Can't he get out, papa?" said Susannah. "Isn't a mad person very
strong?"

"Oh! don't frighten a body, Susannah, before we have had a peep," cried
Emmeline; "I declare I'm afraid to look--do, Col. Nelson, peep first
and see if there's no danger." And there was the confounded Col.
Nelson addressing his eyes to my person, and assuring his fair
companions, my Emmeline, my Susannah, that there was no sort of
danger,--that I was evidently in one of my fits of apathy.

"The paroxysm is off for the moment, ladies,--and even if he were
violent, it is impossible that he should break through the pen. He
seems quite harmless--you may look with safety."

"Yes, he's mighty quiet now, Miss,"--said one of my keepers
encouragingly, "but it's all owing to a close sight of my whip. He was
a-guine to be obstropolous more than once, when I shook it over
him--he's usen to it, I reckon. You can always tell when the roaring
fit is coming on--for he breaks out in such a dreadful sort of
laughing."

"Ha! Ha!--he laughs does he--Ha! Ha!" such was the somewhat wild
interruption offered by Col. Nelson himself. If my laugh produced such
an effect upon my keeper, his had a very disquieting effect upon me.
But, the instinctive conviction that Emmeline and Susannah were now
gazing upon me, prompted me with a sort of fascination, to lift my head
and look for them. I saw their eyes quite distinctly. Bright
treacherie