madam?' said the fellow sullenly, yet with an air of respect,
'Would you have your uncle pistol me for disobeying his orders?'

'He may perhaps pistol you for some other reason, if you do not obey
mine,' said Lilias, composedly.

'You abuse your advantage over me, madam--I really dare not go--I am on
guard over this other miss here; and if I should desert my post, my life
were not worth five minutes' purchase.'

'Then know your post, sir,' said Lilias, 'and watch on the outside of
the door. You have no commission to listen to our private conversation,
I suppose? Begone, sir, without further speech or remonstrance, or I
will tell my uncle that which you would have reason to repent be should
know.'

The fellow looked at her with a singular expression of spite, mixed
with deference. 'You abuse your advantages, madam,' he said, 'and act as
foolishly in doing so as I did in affording you such a hank over me. But
you are a tyrant; and tyrants have commonly short reigns.'

So saying, he left the apartment.

'The wretch's unparalleled insolence,' said Lilias to her brother, 'has
given me one great advantage over him. For knowing that my uncle would
shoot him with as little remorse as a woodcock, if he but guessed at his
brazen-faced assurance towards me, he dares not since that time assume,
so far as I am concerned, the air of insolent domination which the
possession of my uncle's secrets, and the knowledge of his most secret
plans, have led him to exert over others of his family.'

'In the meantime,' said Darsie, 'I am happy to see that the landlord
of the house does not seem so devoted to him as I apprehended; and this
aids the hope of escape which I am nourishing for you and for myself. O
Lilias! the truest of friends, Alan Fairford, is in pursuit of me, and
is here at this moment. Another humble, but, I think, faithful friend,
is also within these dangerous walls.'

Lilias laid her finger on her lips, and pointed to the door. Darsie took
the hint, lowered his voice, and informed her in whispers of the arrival
of Fairford, and that he believed he had opened a communication with
Wandering Willie. She listened with the utmost interest, and had just
begun to reply, when a loud noise was heard in the kitchen, caused
by several contending voices, amongst which Darsie thought he could
distinguish that of Alan Fairford.

Forgetting how little his own condition permitted him to become the
assistant of another, Darsie flew