d flirts in Christendom? I would give
gold on the spot just to see you snap your fingers. Try the manoeuvre."

"If I were to bring Miss Fanshawe into your presence just now?"

"I vow, Lucy, she should not move me: or, she should move me but by one
thing--true, yes, and passionate love. I would accord forgiveness at no
less a price."

"Indeed! a smile of hers would have been a fortune to you a while
since."

"Transformed, Lucy: transformed! Remember, you once called me a slave!
but I am a free man now!"

He stood up: in the port of his head, the carriage of his figure, in
his beaming eye and mien, there revealed itself a liberty which was
more than ease--a mood which was disdain of his past bondage.

"Miss Fanshawe," he pursued, "has led me through a phase of feeling
which is over: I have entered another condition, and am now much
disposed to exact love for love--passion for passion--and good measure
of it, too."

"Ah, Doctor! Doctor! you said it was your nature to pursue Love under
difficulties--to be charmed by a proud insensibility!".

He laughed, and answered, "My nature varies: the mood of one hour is
sometimes the mockery of the next. Well, Lucy" (drawing on his gloves),
"will the Nun come again to-night, think you?"

"I don't think she will."

"Give her my compliments, if she does--Dr. John's compliments--and
entreat her to have the goodness to wait a visit from him. Lucy, was
she a pretty nun? Had she a pretty face? You have not told me that yet;
and _that_ is the really important point."

"She had a white cloth over her face," said I, "but her eyes glittered."

"Confusion to her goblin trappings!" cried he, irreverently: "but at
least she had handsome eyes--bright and soft."

"Cold and fixed," was the reply.

"No, no, we'll none of her: she shall not haunt you, Lucy. Give her
that shake of the hand, if she comes again. Will she stand _that_, do
you think?"

I thought it too kind and cordial for a ghost to stand: and so was the
smile which matched it, and accompanied his "Good-night."

* * * * *

And had there been anything in the garret? What did they discover? I
believe, on the closest examination, their discoveries amounted to very
little. They talked, at first, of the cloaks being disturbed; but
Madame Beck told me afterwards she thought they hung much as usual: and
as for the broken pane in the skylight, she affirmed that aperture was
rarely without one or