ley bade him say she should not part with what
was hers, and wondered at his boldness in troubling her.

'Jack was much affronted at this, and determined to go for his letters
himself. He chose a time when he knew she was at home, and knocked and
went in without much ceremony; for though Harriet was so high and mighty,
Jack had small respect for her aunt, Mrs. Palmley, whose little child had
been his boot-cleaner in earlier days. Harriet was in the room, this
being the first time they had met since she had jilted him. He asked for
his letters with a stern and bitter look at her.

'At first she said he might have them for all that she cared, and took
them out of the bureau where she kept them. Then she glanced over the
outside one of the packet, and suddenly altering her mind, she told him
shortly that his request was a silly one, and slipped the letters into
her aunt's work-box, which stood open on the table, locking it, and
saying with a bantering laugh that of course she thought it best to keep
'em, since they might be useful to produce as evidence that she had good
cause for declining to marry him.

'He blazed up hot. "Give me those letters!" he said. "They are mine!"

'"No, they are not," she replied; "they are mine."

'"Whos'ever they are I want them back," says he. "I don't want to be
made sport of for my penmanship: you've another young man now! he has
your confidence, and you pour all your tales into his ear. You'll be
showing them to him!"

'"Perhaps," said my lady Harriet, with calm coolness, like the heartless
woman that she was.

'Her manner so maddened him that he made a step towards the work-box, but
she snatched it up, locked it in the bureau, and turned upon him
triumphant. For a moment he seemed to be going to wrench the key of the
bureau out of her hand; but he stopped himself, and swung round upon his
heel and went away.

'When he was out-of-doors alone, and it got night, he walked about
restless, and stinging with the sense of being beaten at all points by
her. He could not help fancying her telling her new lover or her
acquaintances of this scene with himself, and laughing with them over
those poor blotted, crooked lines of his that he had been so anxious to
obtain. As the evening passed on he worked himself into a dogged
resolution to have them back at any price, come what might.

'At the dead of night he came out of his mother's house by the back door,
and creeping through the