at's to lose? the love of a noble, honest
gentleman, the joy of raising him from penury."

"Oh, say no more," cries she, in passion. "I know not what madness
possessed me to overlook such consequences. I kiss you for bringing me
to my senses" (with that she catches up my hand and presses her lips to
it again and again). "Look in my face," cries she, "and if you find a
lurking vestige of irresolution there, I'll tear it out."

Indeed, I could see nothing but set determination in her countenance,--a
most hard expression of fixed resolve, that seemed to age her by ten
years, astonishing me not less than those other phases in her rapidly
developing character.

"Now," says she, quickly, and with not a note of her repining tone,
"what was that you spoke of lately,--you are to be our steward?"

"Yes," says I, "for Mr. Godwin has declared most firmly that the moment
he has authority he will cast Simon out for his disloyalty."

"I will not leave that ungrateful duty to him," says she. "Take me to
this wretch at once, and choose the shortest path."

I led her back across the common, and coming to Simon's lodge, she
herself knocked loudly at the door.

Seeing who it was through his little grating, Simon quickly opens the
door, and with fawning humility entreats her to step into his poor room,
and there he stands, cringing and mopping his eyes, in dreadful
apprehension, as having doubtless gathered from some about the house how
matters stood betwixt Moll and Mr. Godwin.

"Where are your keys?" demands Moll, in a very hard, merciless voice.

Perceiving how the land lay, and finding himself thus beset, old Simon
falls to his usual artifices, turning this way and that, like a rat in a
pit, to find some hole for escape. First he feigns to misunderstand,
then, clapping his hands in his pockets, he knows not where he can have
laid them; after that fancies he must have given them to his man Peter,
who is gone out of an errand, etc.; until Moll, losing patience, cut him
short by declaring the loss of the keys unimportant, as doubtless a
locksmith could be found to open his boxes and drawers without 'em.

"My chief requirement is," adds she, "that you leave this house
forthwith, and return no more."

Upon this, finding further evasion impossible, the old man turns to bay,
and asks upon what grounds she would dismiss him without writ or
warrant.

"'Tis sufficient," returns she, "that this house is mine, and that I
will not have