is brilliant
offers? No! for even had she no other scruples, a host of holy memories
encircled her heart, as a shield of power against the tempter's
wiles,--the memory of home, of the two loved beings she had left there,
of former happiness in a more elevated sphere; and of a gentle mother,
whose beauty and virtues she had inherited, whose counsels she
remembered, and who was sleeping in the churchyard.

Disengaging herself from the libertine's embrace, and thoroughly aroused
to a sense of her danger, and the necessity of making all the resistance
she was capable of, to preserve her chastity and honor, the young girl,
losing all sense of fear, poured forth a torrent of indignant eloquence
that for the time completely abashed and overcame the hoary and
lecherous villain.

"No, sir--I will not, cannot love you; I hate and despise you, old
wretch that you are, seeking to tempt a poor child like me to her ruin.
Oh! you are rich, and have the manners of a gentleman before the
world,--and yet you are more base, mean and cowardly than the commonest
ruffian that ever stole a purse or cut a throat! Let me go hence, I
command you; you dare not refuse me, for I know there is a law to
protect _me_, as well as the richest and the highest, and I will go to
those who execute the law, and have you dragged to the bar of justice to
answer for this outrage. Do you hear, sir?--let me go from this accursed
place, or dread the power of the law and the vengeance of Almighty God!"

The libertine quailed before the flashing eyes and proud scorn of his
intended victim; his discomfiture, however, lasted but for a moment. His
red face grew black with the passions of rage and lust combined; he
muttered a fierce curse, and springing forward, seized her in his
vice-like grasp, and forced her towards the sofa, exclaiming--

"Curses on you, little hell-bird, since neither persuasions nor promises
will make you mine, it shall be done by force. Nay, if you scream so, by
the powers of darkness I'll strangle you!"

In all human probability he would have been as good as his word, for
Fanny continued to scream louder and louder; when suddenly Mr. Tickels
received a blow on the head that brought him to the ground, and a voice
cried out--

"Broad-swords and bomb-shells! I am just in time!"

While the libertine lay sprawling upon the carpet, Fanny turned to thank
her deliverer; and what was her astonishment and joy when she beheld the
wrinkled, care-wor