thanks to your skilful nursing! What chill
could resist your warm draughts? But now about your question. What was
it?'

"'Oh, nothing much! I only asked you who was the little girl with the
red cloak, who is so silent and shy that she never answers me when I
speak to her, and always shrinks away whenever she finds herself
observed.'

"The trembling wretch was ready with his falsehood. He answered:

"'Oh! she is the child of a poor couple on the mountain, and comes to
the house for cold victuals; but she is as you have observed, very shy;
so I think you had better leave her to herself.'

"'Yes, but are you sure she is to be trusted? For shy as she is in
other matters, she is bold enough to intrude into the most private parts
of the house, and at the most untimely hours of the night,' remarked the
lady.

"'Indeed!' muttered the guilty man, in a sepulchral tone.

"'Indeed and indeed! Why, only last night, when we came home at
midnight, from Mrs. Judge Mayo's ball, when you lingered below stairs to
speak to the butler, and I ran up into my own room alone, I saw this
strange looking little creature, with the streaming black hair and the
red cloak, standing before my dressing-glass! Now what do you think of
that?'

"'She--she--she has been a sort of a pet of the family, and has had the
run of the house, coming in and out of all the rooms at all hours, like
any little dog,' answered the conscious criminal, in a quavering voice.

"'_That_ must be reformed at once!' said the Fairfax bride, drawing
herself up with much dignity, and also perhaps with some jealous
suspicion.

"'It shall, by my soul! I will give orders to that effect,' quavered
Philip Dubarry.

"'Nay, do not take that trouble. It is _my_ prerogative to order my
household, and I shall do it,' proudly answered the lady.

"And here the matter might have ended, but for that interest Philip
Dubarry felt in the subject. He remembered the most awful threat of his
betrayed gipsy wife: 'In the flesh or in the spirit, to dwell in the
house as long as its walls should stand! In the flesh or in the spirit,
to blast and destroy the bride he should bring there to take her place.'
Up to this time he had never had any reason to suppose that the gipsy
girl had kept her word. He had never seen nor heard of anything unusual
about the house. But now when his wife spoke of this silent inmate in
the red cloak, he recognized the portrait all but too well, and his
guilty so