a rope-walk and some patches of kitchen garden occupying a vacant strip of ground on the other. He advanced with eager eyes and quickened step; for he saw before him the lonely figure of a woman, standing by the parapet of the wall, with her face set toward the westward view. He approached cautiously, to make sure of her before she turned and observed him. There was no mistaking that tall, dark figure, as it rested against the parapet with a listless grace. There she stood, in her long black cloak and gown, the last dim light of evening falling tenderly on her pale, resolute young face. There she stood—not three months since the spoiled darling of her parents; the priceless treasure of the household, never left unprotected, never trusted alone—there she stood in the lovely dawn of her womanhood, a castaway in a strange city, wrecked on the world!
Vagabond as he was, the first sight of her staggered even the dauntless assurance of Captain Wragge. As she slowly turned her face and looked at him, he raised his hat, with the nearest approach to respect which a long life of unblushing audacity had left him capable of making.
'I think I have the honor of addressing the younger Miss Vanstone?' he began. 'Deeply gratified, I am sure—for more reasons than one.'
She looked at him with a cold surprise. No recollection of the day when he had followed her sister and herself on their way home with Miss Garth rose in her memory, while he now confronted her, with his altered manner and his altered dress.
'You are mistaken,' she said, quietly. 'You are a perfect stranger to me.'
'Pardon me,' replied the captain; 'I am a species of relation. I had the pleasure of seeing you in the spring of the present year. I presented myself on that memorable occasion to an honored preceptress in your late father's family. Permit me, under equally agreeable circumstances, to present myself to
By this time he had recovered complete possession of his own impudence; his party-colored eyes twinkled cheerfully, and he accompanied his modest announcement of himself with a dancing-master's bow.
Magdalen frowned, and drew back a step. The captain was not a man to be daunted by a cold reception. He tucked his umbrella under his arm and jocosely spelled his name for her further enlightenment. 'W, R, A, double G, E—Wragge,' said the captain, ticking off the letters persuasively on his fingers.
'I remember your name,' said Magdalen. 'Excuse me for leaving you abruptly. I have an engagement.'
She tried to pass him and walk on northward toward the railway. He instantly met the attempt by raising both hands, and displaying a pair of darned black gloves outspread in polite protest.
'Not that way,' he said; 'not that way, Miss Vanstone, I beg and entreat!'
'Why not?' she asked haughtily.
'Because,' answered the captain, 'that is the way which leads to Mr. Huxtable's.'
In the ungovernable astonishment of hearing his reply she suddenly bent forward, and for the first time looked him close in the face. He sustained her suspicious scrutiny with every appearance of feeling highly gratified by it. 'H, U, X—Hux,' said the captain, playfully turning to the old joke: 'T, A—ta, Huxta; B, L, E—ble; Huxtable.'
'What do you know about Mr. Huxtable?' she asked. 'What do you mean by mentioning him to me?'
The captain's curly lip took a new twist upward. He immediately replied, to the best practical purpose, by producing the handbill from his pocket.
'There is just light enough left,' he said, 'for young (and lovely) eyes to read by. Before I enter upon the personal statement which your flattering inquiry claims from me, pray bestow a moment's attention on this Document.'
She took the handbill from him. By the last gleam of twilight she read the lines which set a price on her recovery—which published the description of her in pitiless print, like the description of a strayed dog. No tender consideration had prepared her for the shock, no kind word softened it to her when it came. The vagabond, whose cunning eyes watched her eagerly while she read, knew no more that the handbill which he had stolen had only been prepared in anticipation of the worst, and was only to be publicly used in the event of all more considerate means of tracing her being tried in vain—than she knew it. The bill dropped from her hand; her face flushed deeply. She turned away from Captain Wragge, as if all idea of his existence had passed out of her mind.
'Oh, Norah, Norah!' she said to herself, sorrowfully. 'After the letter I wrote you—after the hard struggle I had to go away! Oh, Norah, Norah!'
'How is Norah?' inquired the captain, with the utmost politeness.
She turned upon him with an angry brightness in her large gray eyes. 'Is this thing shown publicly?' she asked, stamping her foot on it. 'Is the mark on my neck described all over York?'
'Pray compose yourself,' pleaded the persuasive Wragge. 'At present I have every reason to believe that you have just perused the only copy in circulation. Allow me to pick it up.'
Before he could touch the bill she snatched it from the pavement, tore it into fragments, and threw them over the wall.
'Bravo!' cried the captain. 'You remind me of your poor dear mother. The family spirit, Miss Vanstone. We all inherit our hot blood from my maternal grandfather.'
'How did you come by it?' she asked, suddenly.
'My dear creature, I have just told you,' remonstrated the captain. 'We all come by it from my maternal grandfather.'
'How did you come by that handbill?' she repeated, passionately.
'I beg ten thousand pardons! My head was running on the family spirit.—How did I come by it? Briefly thus.' Here Captain Wragge entered on his personal statement; taking his customary vocal exercise through the longest words of the English language, with the highest elocutionary relish. Having, on this rare occasion, nothing to gain by concealment, he departed from his ordinary habits, and, with the utmost amazement at the novelty of his own situation, permitted himself to tell the unmitigated truth.
The effect of the narrative on Magdalen by no means fulfilled Captain Wragge's anticipations in relating it. She was not startled; she was not irritated; she showed no disposition to cast herself on his mercy, and to seek his advice. She looked him steadily in the face; and all she said, when he had neatly rounded his last sentence, was
