in my arms last night. I made a discovery that brought
something of deep interest back to her mind, and gave her timbers such a
shock! I watched, and read the whole story in her emotions. One
accustomed to the sharps of the legal profession can do this sort of
thing. She is afraid of approaching this beautiful creature, Anna
Bonard, seeing the life she lives, and the suspicions it might create in
fashionable society, did she pursue such a course to the end of finding
out whether she be really the lost child of the relative she refers to
so often. Her object is to find one Mag Munday, who used to knock about
here, and with whom the child was left. But enough of this for the
present." Thus saying, they enter the house of the old antiquary, and
finding no one but Maria at home, Mr. Snivel takes the liberty of
throwing his arms about her waist. This done, he attempts to drag her
across the room and upon the sofa. "Neither your father nor you ever had
a better friend," he says, as the girl struggles from his grasp, shrinks
at his feet, and, with a look of disdain, upbraids him for his attempt
to take advantage of a lone female.

"High, ho!" interposes Keepum, "what airs these sort of people put on,
eh? Don't amount to much, no how; they soon get over them, you know. A
blasted deal of assumption, as you say. Ha, ha, ha! I rather like this
sort of modesty. 'Tisn't every one can put it cleverly." Mr. Snivel
winks to Keepum, who makes an ineffectual attempt to extinguish the
light, which Maria seizes in her hand, and summoning her courage, stands
before them in a defiant attitude, an expression of hate and scorn on
her countenance. "Ah, fiend! you take this liberty--you seek to destroy
me because I am poor--because you think me humble--an easy object to
prey upon. I am neither a stranger to the world nor your cowardly
designs; and so long as I have life you shall not gloat over the
destruction of my virtue. Approach me at your peril--knaves! You have
compromised my father; you have got him in your grasp, that you may the
more easily destroy me. But you will be disappointed, your perfidy will
recoil on yourselves: though stripped of all else, I will die protecting
that virtue you would not dare to offend but for my poverty." This
unexpected display of resolution has the effect of making the position
of the intruders somewhat uncomfortable. Mr. Keepum, whose designs
Snivel would put in execution, sinks, cowardly, upon the sofa, wh