I am really inclined to believe, after all, that the best mode of finally
extinguishing sorrow for a dead husband, is to listen quietly to the
reasonable pleas of a live lover. After the scene to which it has been my
painful task to allude in the last chapter, it would have been the very
height of prudery on the part of the lady and gentleman, had they avoided
speaking on the subject in which they had both become so deeply interested.
They did not attempt it. The first excitement over, Margaret entreated her
lover to be gone. He did not move. She conjured him, as he valued her
esteem, to flee from that spot, and to return to it no more. He pressed
her hand to his devoted lips. "What would become of her?" she emphatically
exclaimed, clasping her taper fingers in distrust and doubt. "You will be
mine, dear Margaret," was the wild reply, and the taper fingers easily
relaxed--gave way--and got confounded with his own. After the lapse of
four-and-twenty hours, reason returned to both; not the cold and
calculating capacity that stands aloof from every suggestion of feeling,
but that more sensible and temporizing reason, that with the _will_ goes
hand-in-hand, and serves the blind one as a careful guide. They met--for
they had parted suddenly, abruptly--in the summer-house, by previous
appointment. Michael pleaded his affection--his absorbing and devoted love.
She has objections numerous--insuperable; they dwindle down to one or two,
and these as weak and easily overcome as woman's melting heart itself.
They meet to argue, and he stays to woo. They bandy words and arguments
for hours together, but all their logic fails in proof; whilst one long,
passionate, parting kiss, does more by way of demonstration than the art
and science ever yet effected.

Abraham Allcraft, who had been busily engaged behind the scenes pulling
the wires and exhibiting the puppets, appeared upon the stage as soon as
the first act of the performance was at an end. His son had said nothing
to him, but Abraham had many eyes and ears, and saw and heard enough to