or any of your two daughters that you talk of. You must
be quite sensible of that."

My friend shook his head three times during this short sentence, while
the woman held up her hands in amazement and disgust, exclaiming:
"There goes the self-righteous one! There goes the consecrated youth,
who cannot err! You, sir, know, and the world shall know, of the faith
that is in this most just, devout, and religious miscreant! Can you
deny that you have already been in this place four months and seven
days? Or that in that time you have been forbid my house twenty times?
Or that you have persevered in your endeavours to effect the basest and
most ungenerous of purposes? Or that you have attained them? Hypocrite
and deceiver as you are! Yes, sir; I say, dare you deny that you have
attained your vile, selfish, and degrading purposes towards a young,
innocent, and unsuspecting creature, and thereby ruined a poor widow's
only hope in this world? No, you cannot look in my face, and deny aught
of this."

"The woman is raving mad!" said I. "You, illustrious sir, know that, in
the first instance, I have not yet been in this place one month." My
friend shook his head again, and answered me: "You are wrong, my dear
friend; you are wrong. It is indeed the space of time that the lady
hath stated, to a day, since you came here, and I came with you; and I
am sorry that I know for certain that you have been frequently haunting
her house, and have often had private correspondence with one of the
young ladies, too. Of the nature of it I presume not to know."

"You are mocking me," said I. "But as well may you try to reason me out
of my existence as to convince me that I have been here even one month,
or that any of those things you allege against me has the shadow of
truth or evidence to support it. I will swear to you, by the great God
that made me; and by--"

"Hold, thou most abandoned profligate!" cried she violently, "and do
not add perjury to your other detestable crimes. Do not, for mercy's
sake, any more profane that name whose attributes you have wrested and
disgraced. But tell me what reparation you propose offering to my
injured child."

"I again declare, before Heaven, woman, that, to the best of my
knowledge and recollection, I never saw your daughter. I now think I
have some faint recollection of having seen your face, but where, or in
what place, puzzles me quite."

"And, why?" said she. "Because for months and days you h