merchant-burgess as happy as any poor mortal creature can be when so
near the term of his departure. Such is our way of speaking; and yet we
are forced to admit, that at no period of life, however near the
ultimate, abating the advent of the great illumination which breaks like
a new dawn upon the internal sense of a favoured few, can you say that
the hold of this world upon the spirit is ever renounced. Whether the
young man was as happy, we may not venture to say; but this we might
surmise, even at this stage of our story, and in reference to the
classical proverb, that the bastard might be the beautiful Nisa, and the
lawful heir the ill-favoured Mopsus.

These things we may leave to development; and with a caution to the
reader not to be over-suspicious, we will follow our Nisa, Rachel
Grierson, as she proceeds from the house of the merchant-burgess up the
High Street, at a period of the evening of the same day when the shadows
of the tall lands wrapped the crowds of loiterers and passengers almost
in utter darkness; not that she chose this time for any purpose of
secrecy,--for she had no secret, except that solitary one which every
young woman has, and holds, up to the minute of conviction, that she is
engaged, after which it becomes a flame blown by her own breath,--but
simply because it suited the routine of her duties. Her night-cloak kept
her from the cold, and the panoply of her virtue secured her from
insult; so, threading her way amidst the throng, she arrived at the head
of the old winding street called the West Bow, where, at a projection a
little to the north of Major Weir's Entry, she mounted a narrow stair.
On arriving at a door on the third landing-place, she tapped gently, and
in obedience to a shrill voice, which cried "Come in," she lifted the
latch, and entered a small room, where, at a bench, sat a very peculiar
personage. This was no other than the famous Paul Bennett, an artist in
jewellery, who at that time excelled all his compeers for beauty of