sly leaning forward, as though to devour each
syllable as it was uttered, and who now resumed her former position with
a long drawn breath. "In the negative say you, Alger--a--a--Mr.
Reynolds?"

"Call me Algernon, Ella, I pray you; it sounds more sweet and friendly.
Ay, she answered in the negative. Heavens! what a shock was there for
my proud nature! To be thus publicly insulted and rejected--to be thus
made the butt and ridicule of fools and knaves--a mark for the jests and
sneers of friend and foe! Oh! how my blood boiled and coursed in lava
streams through my heated veins! I saw it all. I was the dupe of some
artful design, intended to stigmatize me forever; and wild with a
thousand terrible brain-searing thoughts, I rushed from the hall to my
own apartment, seized upon my pistols, and was just in the act of
putting a period to my existence, when my arm was suddenly grasped, and
my hated rival and cousin stood before me.

"'Fiend!' cried I in frenzy; 'devil in human shape!--do you seek me in
the body? What want you here?'

"His features were pale with excitement, and his lips quivered as he
made answer: 'Be calm, Algernon, be calm; it was meant but in jest!'

"'Jest!' screamed I; 'do you then own to a knowledge of it,
villain?--were you its author?--then take that, and answer it as you
dare!'--and as I spoke, with the breech of my undischarged pistol, I
stretched him senseless at my feet. Under the excitement of the moment,
I was about to take a more terrible revenge; when others suddenly rushed
in--seized and disarmed me--bore my rival from my sight--and, to
conclude, placed me in bed, where I was confined for three weeks by a
delirious fever, and then only recovered as it were by a miracle.

"During my convalescence, I learned that my cousin, soon after my
return, had been privately married to Elvira; and prompted by his evil
genius, and some of my enemies, had induced his wife to enter into the
plot, the result of which has already been briefly narrated. I do not
think she did it through malice, and doubtless little thought of the
consequences that were destined to follow; but whether so or not, her
punishment has, I think, been fully adequate to her crime; for the last
I heard of her, she was an inmate of a mad-house--remorse for her
conduct, the abuse heaped upon her by society, and her own severe fright
at the termination of the stratagem, having driven her insane. Now comes
the most tragic part of my nar