med ready to burst. The burning red of her brow
changed to an agreeable mahogany, and Peregrine was upon the point of
flinging a glass of water into the old woman's face, when she recovered
her breath and speech at the same time.

"I can't help laughing," she said, "I can't help laughing at the
foolish little thing. No; such love is no longer on earth. Only think,
Mr. Tyss,----"

Here she broke out into a fresh fit of laughter, and Peregrine's
patience was well nigh exhausted. At last, with much difficulty, he got
out of her that the little princess had taken up the whimsical notion
of Mr. Tyss being positively determined to marry the old woman, and had
compelled her solemnly to promise to reject his hand.

It seemed to Peregrine as if he were mixed up in a scene of witchery,
and he felt so strangely, that even the honest old Alina appeared to
him a supernatural kind of being, from whom he could not fly with
sufficient speed. But she still detained him, having something to
communicate in all haste, that concerned the little princess.

"It is now certain," she said confidentially,--"it is now certain, my
dear Mr. Tyss, that the bright star of fortune has arisen, but it is
your business to keep it favourable. When I protested to the little one
that you were desperately smitten with her, and far from any idea of
marrying me, she replied, that she could not be convinced of it and
give you her hand till you had complied with a wish that had long sate
near her heart. She says, that she had a pretty little negro boy in her
service who had fled from her; I have, indeed, denied it, but she
maintains that the boy is so little he might live in a nutshell.

"Nothing will ever come of this," exclaimed Peregrine violently, well
knowing what the old woman was driving at, and rushed out of the room,
and then out of the house, with great vehemence.

It is an established custom, that when the hero of a tale is under any
violent agitation, he should run out into a forest, or, at least, into
some lonely wood; and the custom is good, because it really prevails in
life. Hence it could not be otherwise with Mr. Tyss, than that he ran
from his house without stopping, till he had left the city behind him
and reached a remote wood. Moreover, as in a romantic history no wood
must be without rustling leaves, sighing breezes, murmuring brooks, &c.
&c. it is to be supposed that Peregrine found all these things in his
place of refuge. Upon a mo