ved."

"Well?" added Leslie, looking up inquiringly, after reading the
mysterious announcement.

"Well?" said the mad girl, mimicking him. "Is _that_ all the effect it
produces upon you? Do your knees not shake and does not your hair start
up on end when you think of it, so that your hat--if your hat was not
unfortunately hung upon the hook yonder, would require to be held on by
main force?"

"How _can_ you be so absurd?" suggested Bell, who really feared that the
pronounced behaviour of her friend might draw too much attention to
their table, as there was indeed some danger of its doing.

"Bah!" said Joe, "I _couldn't_ be absurd! I was 'never absurd in my
life,' as Sir Harcourt Courtley says. But Mr. Leslie!--what have I said?
You look pale--ill!" and the face of the young girl tamed instantly to
an expression of genuine alarm, not at all unwarranted by the
circumstances. The face of Tom Leslie had indeed undergone a sudden
change. His usual ruddy cheek seemed ghastly white, his eyes stared
glassily, and there was a quick convulsive shiver running over his frame
which did not escape the notice of either of his two companions. The
kind heart of Josephine Harris at once hit upon a solution for the
otherwise strange spectacle. She had said some awkward word--touched
some hidden and painful chord connected with past suffering or
experience; and she felt like having her tongue extracted at the root
for the commission of such a blunder.

What _was_ the cause of this sudden emotion? The explanation may not be
so difficult to any thoughtful reader of this story as it was to the two
young girls who sought it. Tom Leslie had merely read over the
mendacious advertisement, at first, with the same indifference given to
thousands of corresponding humbugs; and at the first reading he had not
noticed the place at all. At the second reading, his mind took in the
direction: "No. -- Prince Street, near Bowery," and at the same moment
he comprehended the words, "Madame Elise Boutell, _from Paris_." Tom
Leslie was every thing else than a coward; and yet he had shuddered
before at the sight and the memory of the "red woman:" he whitened and
shuddered now. What if another meeting with that mysterious woman was at
hand?--if the scenes of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard were about to be
re-enacted? The French name and the words "from Paris," the place, which
seemed to him undoubtedly the same of his adventure with Harding--all
made up a presum