n to her aid.

Maria, it must be said, was one of those seemingly calm natures in which
resentment takes deepest root, in which the passions are most violent
when roused. Solitude does, indeed, tend to invest the passionate nature
with a calm surface. A less penetrating observer than the chivalrous
Keepum, might have discovered in Maria a spirit he could not so easily
humble to his uses. It is the modest, thoughtful woman, you cannot make
lick the dust in sorrow and tears. "Coward! you laid ruffian hands on
me!" says Maria, again towering to her height, and giving vent to her
feelings.

"Madam, Madam," pursues Keepum, trembling and crouching, "you asperse my
honor,--my sacred honor, Madam. You see--let me say a word, now--you are
letting your temper get the better of you. I never, and the public know
I never did--I never did a dishonorable thing in my life." Turning to
the bewildered old man, he continues: "to be called a knave, and
upbraided in this manner by your daughter, when I have befriended you
all these days!" His wicked eyes fall guilty to the floor.

"Out man!--out! Let your sense of right, if you have it, teach you what
is friendship. Know that, like mercy, it is not poured out with hands
reeking of female dishonor."

Mr. Keepum, like many more of our very fine gentlemen, had so trained
his thoughts to look upon the poor as slaves created for a base use,
that he neither could bring his mind to believe in the existence of such
things as noble spirits under humble roofs, nor to imagine himself--even
while committing the grossest outrages--doing aught to sully the high
chivalric spirit he fancied he possessed. The old Antiquary, on the
other hand, was not a little surprised to find his daughter displaying
such extraordinary means of repulsing an enemy.

Trembling, and childlike he stands, conscious of being in the grasp of a
knave, whose object was more the ruin of his daughter than the recovery
of a small amount of money, the tears glistening in his eyes, and the
finger of old age marked on his furrowed brow.

"Father, father!" says Maria, and the words hang upon her quivering
lips, her face becomes pale as marble, her strength deserts her,--she
trembles from head to foot, and sinks upon the old man's bosom,
struggling to smother her sobs. Her passion has left her; her calmer
nature has risen up to rebuke it. The old man leads her tenderly to the
sofa, and there seeks to sooth her troubled spirit.

"As