er courage had failed her. But
she soon recovered, and observed: "I cannot think why you should take
the trouble to write so to me, a perfect stranger." Another pause--"I
wonder no one ever suspected me before."

Here was a confession and a key to character. The cold gray eye, the
thin compressed lips, winch I had had time to observe, were true indexes
to the "lady's inner heart:"--selfish, calculating, utterly devoid of
conscience; unable to conceive the existence of spontaneous kindness;
utterly indifferent to any thing except discovery; and almost
indifferent to that, because convinced that no serious consequences
could affect a lady of her rank and influence.

"Madam," I replied, "as long as you dealt with tradesmen accustomed to
depend on aristocratic customers, your rank and position, and their
large profits, protected you from suspicion; but you have made a mistake
in descending from your vantage ground to make a poor shopman your
innocent accomplice--a man who will be keenly alive to any thing that
may injure his wife or children. His terrors--but for my
interposition--would have ruined you utterly. Tell me, how many of these
things have you put afloat?"

She seemed a little taken aback by this speech, but was wonderfully
firm. She passed her white, jewelled hand over her eyes, seemed
calculating, and then whispered, with a confiding look of innocent
helplessness, admirably assumed, "About as many as amount to twelve
hundred pounds."

"And what means have you for meeting them?"

At this question, so plainly put, her face flushed. She half rose from
her chair, and exclaimed, in the true tone of aristocratic
_hauteur_--"Really, sir, I do not know what right you have to ask me
that question."

I laughed a little, though not very loud. It was rude, I own; but who
could have helped it? I replied, speaking low; but slowly and
distinctly:--"You forget. I did not send for you: you came to me. You
have forged bills to the amount of twelve hundred pounds. Yours is not
the case of a ruined merchant, or an ignorant over-tempted clerk. In
your case a jury" (she shuddered at that word) "would find no
extenuating circumstances; and if you should fall into the hands of
justice, you will be convicted, degraded, clothed in a prison dress, and
transported for life. I do not want to speak harshly; but I insist that
you find means to take up the bill which Mr. Axminster has so
unwittingly endorsed!"

The Honorable Miss Sna