one, the widow was not a whit more gracious to Captain Blackbeard. She
requested Mr. Trippet to order her carriage that night, and went home
without uttering one single word to Captain Blackbeard.

The next morning, and with a face of preternatural longitude, the Rev.
Dr. Sly paid a visit to the widow. "The wickedness and bloodthirstiness
of the world," said he, "increase every day. O my dear madam, what
monsters do we meet in it,--what wretches, what assassins, are allowed
to go abroad! Would you believe it, that this morning, as my nephew was
taking his peaceful morning-meal, one of the ruffians from the barracks
presented himself with a challenge from Captain Blackbeard?"

"Is he hurt?" screamed the widow.

"No, my dear friend, my dear Frederick is not hurt. And O, what a joy it
will be to him to think you have that tender solicitude for his
welfare!"

"You know I have always had the highest respect for him," said the
widow; who, when she screamed, was in truth thinking of somebody else.
But the doctor did not choose to interpret her thoughts in that way, and
gave all the benefit of them to his nephew.

"That anxiety, dearest madam, which you express for him emboldens me,
encourages me, authorizes me, to press a point upon you which I am sure
must have entered your thoughts ere now. The dear youth in whom you have
shown such an interest lives but for you! Yes, fair lady, start not at
hearing that his sole affections are yours; and with what pride shall I
carry to him back the news that he is not indifferent to you!"

"Are they going to fight?" continued the lady, in a breathless state of
alarm. "For Heaven's sake, dearest doctor, prevent the horrid, horrid
meeting. Send for a magistrate's warrant; do anything; but do not suffer
those misguided young men to cut each other's throats!"

"Fairest lady, I fly!" said the doctor, and went back to lunch quite
delighted with the evident partiality Mrs. Bluebeard showed for his
nephew. And Mrs. Bluebeard, not content with exhorting him to prevent
the duel, rushed to Mr. Pound, the magistrate, informed him of the
facts, got out warrants against both Mr. Sly and the captain, and would
have put them into execution; but it was discovered that the former
gentleman had abruptly left town, so that the constable could not lay
hold of him.

It somehow, however, came to be generally known that the widow Bluebeard
had declared herself in favor of Mr. Sly, the lawyer; that she had