idn't mind their own business, and keep
themselves clear, they'd get served the same," was the promise held out
in reply to their remonstrances; and the lawyer, who was short and fat,
and could not have knocked a man down, had it been to save his life,
backed out of the _melee_, and contented himself with issuing forth
confused threatenings of the terrors of the law. Miss Carlyle stood
her ground majestically, and looked on with a grim countenance. Had she
interfered for his protection, she could not have been heard; and if she
could have been, there's no knowing whether she would have done it.

On, to the brink of the pond--a green, dank, dark, slimy sour, stinking
pond. His coat-tails were gone by this time, and sundry rents and
damages appeared in--in another useful garment. One pulled him, another
pushed him, a third shook him by the collar, half a dozen buffeted him,
and all abused him.

"In with him, boys!"

"Mercy! Mercy!" shrieked the victim, his knees bending and his teeth
chattering--"a little mercy for the love of Heaven!"

"Heaven! Much he knows of Heaven!"

A souse, a splash, a wild cry, a gurgle, and Sir Francis Levison was
floundering in the water, its green poison, not to mention its adders
and thads and frogs, going down his throat by bucketfuls. A hoarse,
derisive laugh, and a hip, hip, hurrah! broke from the actors; while the
juvenile ragtag, in wild delight, joined their hands round the pool, and
danced the demon's dance, like so many red Indians. They had never had
such a play acted for them before.

Out of the pea-soup before he was quite dead, quite senseless. Of all
drowned rats, he looked the worst, as he stood there with his white,
rueful face, his shivery limbs, and his dilapidated garments, shaking
the wet off him. The laborers, their duty done, walked coolly away; the
tagrag withdrew to a safe distance, waiting for what might come next;
and Miss Carlyle moved away also. Not more shivery was that wretched
man than Lady Isabel, as she walked by her side. A sorry figure to cut,
that, for her once chosen cavalier. What did she think of his beauty
now? I know what she thought of her past folly.

Miss Carlyle never spoke a word. She sailed on, with her head up, though
it was turned occasionally to look at the face of Madame Vine, at the
deep distressing blush which this gaze called into her cheeks. "It's
very odd," thought Miss Corny. "The likeness, especially in the eyes,
is--Where are yo