ising demesnes. There was something
weird and primeval in the aspect of the place; especially when in the
long nights of winter you beheld the distant fires and lights which give
to the vicinity of certain manufactories so preternatural an appearance,
streaming red and wild over the waste. So abandoned by man appeared the
spot, that you found it difficult to imagine that it was only from human
fires that its bleak and barren desolation was illumined. For miles
along the moor you detected no vestige of any habitation; but as you
approached the verge nearest to the town, you could just perceive at a
little distance from the main road, by which the common was intersected,
a small, solitary, and miserable hovel.

Within this lonely abode, at the time in which my story opens, were
seated two persons. The one was a man of about fifty years of age, and
in a squalid and wretched garb, which was yet relieved by an affectation
of ill-assorted finery. A silk handkerchief, which boasted the ornament
of a large brooch of false stones, was twisted jauntily round a muscular
but meagre throat; his tattered breeches were also decorated by buckles,
one of pinchbeck, and one of steel. His frame was lean, but broad
and sinewy, indicative of considerable strength. His countenance was
prematurely marked by deep furrows, and his grizzled hair waved over
a low, rugged, and forbidding brow, on which there hung an everlasting
frown that no smile from the lips (and the man smiled often) could chase
away. It was a face that spoke of long-continued and hardened vice--it
was one in which the Past had written indelible characters. The brand
of the hangman could not have stamped it more plainly, nor have more
unequivocally warned the suspicion of honest or timid men.

He was employed in counting some few and paltry coins, which, though an
easy matter to ascertain their value, he told and retold, as if the act
could increase the amount. "There must be some mistake here, Alice," he
said in a low and muttered tone: "we can't be so low--you know I had two
pounds in the drawer but Monday, and now--Alice, you must have stolen
some of the money--curse you."

The person thus addressed sat at the opposite side of the smouldering
and sullen fire; she now looked quietly up, and her face singularly
contrasted that of the man.

She seemed about fifteen years of age, and her complexion was remarkably
pure and delicate, even despite the sunburnt tinge which her h