e head, and the
cloak hurled from the shoulders. "Ungrateful wretch, as false as vile,
do you know me now?"

"Mittie! is it indeed you?" said Clinton, involuntarily recoiling a few
steps from the fiery glance that flashed through her tears. "I am not
worthy of this condescension."

"Condescension!" repeated she, disdainfully. "Condescension! Yes--you
say well. You did not expect me!" continued she, in a tone of withering
sarcasm. "I am sorry for your disappointment. I am sorry the gentle
Helen did not see fit to leave her downy bed, and warm room, braving the
inclemency of the wintry blast, to minister to her waiting lover. It is
a wondrous pity."

Then changing her accent, and bursting into a strain of the most
impassioned emotion--

"Oh, my soul! was it for this I came forth alone, in darkness and
stealth, like the felon whose den I sought? Is it on such a being as
this, I have wasted such boundless wealth of love? Father, mother,
brother, sister--all vainly urged their claims upon my heart. It was
marble--it was ice to them. They thought I was made of stone, granite;
would to Heaven I were. But you, Clinton; but you breathed upon the
rock, you softened, you warmed; and now, wretch, you grind it into
powder. You melted the ice--and having drained the waters, you have left
a dry and burning channel--here."

Mittie pressed her hand upon her heart, with a gesture of pain, and
began to traverse wildly the narrow cell; her cloak, which had fallen
back from her shoulders, sweeping in the dust. Every passion was
wrestling for mastery in her bosom.

"Why," she exclaimed, suddenly stopping and gazing fixedly upon him,
"why did you make me conscious of this terrible vitality? What motive
had you for crossing my path, and like Attila, the destroyer, withering
every green blade beneath my feet? I had never wronged you. What motive,
I ask, had you for deceiving and mocking me, who so madly trusted, so
blindly worshipped?"

"Spare me, Mittie," exclaimed the humbled and convicted Clinton.
"Trample not on a fallen wretch, who has nothing to say in his defence.
But one thing I will say, I have not intended to deceive you. I did love
you, and felt at the time all that I professed. Had you loved me less, I
had been more constant. But why, let me ask, have you sought me here, to
upbraid me for my inconstancy? What good can it do to you or to me? You
call me a wretch: and I acknowledge myself to be one, a vile, ungrateful
wretch