able despoiler of the dead--now, wretched thief, now you
shall feel my vengeance," cried Philip, with a loud voice. "If you
remain within, you perish in the flames; if you attempt to come out, you
shall die by my hands. Do you hear, Mynheer Poots--do you hear?"

Hardly had Philip concluded this address, when the window of the upper
floor furthest from the burning door was thrown open.

"Ay,--you come now to beg and to entreat;--but no--no," cried Philip--
who stopped as he beheld at the window what seemed to be an apparition,
for instead of the wretched little miser, he beheld one of the loveliest
forms Nature ever deigned to mould--an angelic creature, of about
sixteen or seventeen, who appeared calm and resolute in the midst of the
danger by which she was threatened. Her long black hair was braided and
twined round her beautifully-formed head; her eyes were large, intensely
dark, yet soft; her forehead high and white, her chin dimpled, her ruby
lips arched and delicately fine, her nose small and straight. A
lovelier face could not be well imagined; it reminded you of what the
best of painters have sometimes, in their more fortunate moments,
succeeded in embodying, when they would represent a beauteous saint.
And as the flames wreathed and the smoke burst out in columns and swept
past the window, so might she have reminded you in her calmness of
demeanour of some martyr at the stake.

"What wouldst thou, violent young man? Why are the inmates of this
house to suffer death by your means?" said the maiden, with composure.

For a few seconds Philip gazed, and could make no reply; then the
thought seized him that in his vengeance, he was about to sacrifice so
much loveliness. He forgot everything but her danger, and seizing one
of the large poles which he had brought to feed the flame, he threw off
and scattered in every direction the burning masses, until nothing was
left which could hurt the building but the ignited door itself; and
this, which as yet--for it was of thick oak plank--had not suffered very
material injury, he soon reduced, by beating it, with clods of earth, to
a smoking and harmless state. During these active measures on the part
of Philip, the young maiden watched him in silence.

"All is safe now, young lady," said Philip. "God forgive me that I
should have risked a life so precious. I thought but to wreak my
vengeance upon Mynheer Poots."

"And what cause can Mynheer Poots have given for