beamed on her face. She looked
like an inspired priestess before the altar,--then like Norma in
her despair,--then like the maddened Medea in Rachel's thrilling
impersonation. Then disgust and fright overcame her, and her sensitive
womanly nature bore sway. It was more than she could bear, this
accumulation of misfortune, disgrace, and insult. Her soul rebelled,
contended desperately with fate, till, overcome, she sank into her
chair, and suffered herself to be led to her room.

Shut up in their retreat, the women waited for the morning with
sleepless eyes, or with only transient lapses of consciousness. Sometime
after midnight, they were startled by the sound of a body falling
heavily in the hall, and, an instant after, by the shout of "Burglars!
thieves!" They rushed to the staircase in extreme fright, and soon
learned the cause. The wary officer evidently did not believe the tale
that had been told him respecting the absence of Mr. Sandford; and, that
nobody should go out or in without his knowledge, he had drawn the sofa
across the hall, completely cutting off all passage. A small jet of gas
was left burning. Charles, returning late from the club in a mild stage
of inebriation, entered the house by means of his latch-key, not without
difficulty, and at once fell headlong over the sofa, and the worthy
official sleeping thereon. When he heard the cry of "Burglars!" it
occurred to him that he must have been knocked down by one of the gang;
and he joined his own voice to the uproar,--

"BuggLARS! buggLARS!"

An instant after, there was a grip on his collar.

"Now I got ye, ye vill'in! What ye doin' on here?"

"What _you_ doin' on, you rasc'l, inagen'l'm'n'shouse thistim'o'night?"

"Arnswer me, you scoundrel, breakin' into a peaceful dwellin'!"

"Tha'swhat_I_wan'to know.--How'd _you_com'ere? What'syerbusiness?
Le'gomycollar. I'lsen'forp'lice. Le'go!"

Tipsy as he was, he managed to give his assailant a pretty substantial
token of regard under the ear, with his knuckles.

"Now young'un, you're drunk! I won't hit you back, 'cause a case for
manslaughter might be expensive. How'd you break in here, when you are
so drunk you can't stand? I don't see how you could get in with the door
open."

"Noneo'yerimp'r'ence! Cl'out! Adecen'bugglar'sbad'nough;
yousmokerot'nt'baccah. G'off! youdirtybugg_lar!_"

"Young chap, it's time to stop this nonsense, or I'll have you in the
watch-house in no time. Who are you? and how c