yet? Have you tired of sugar-sticks? What next?" So she went on
grumbling and scolding until the doctor came grunting to the open door
with Aurelia upon his arm.

He was, as usual, out of breath and angry. He was also, I judged,
embarrassed and fretted by the ministrations of Aurelia.

"My curse," I heard him say, "my undying curse upon the man who built
this house. Twice a day am I to scale a mountain? Wife, wife, you
strangle me!"

"Oh, dear friend! Oh, dear friend!" 'Twas the voice of Aurelia. "Are you
come back to your poor girl?"

"Hey," cried he testily, "do I seem to be absent? I wish you would talk
sense. These infernal stairs rob us all of our wits, it seems."

"I am very foolish," said Aurelia, and I heard her trouble in her tones.
"I have been waiting so long--so very long."

"There, my child, there," said he, and kissed her. "Now be pleased to
let me into my house." With a sigh, which I heard, she released him, and
he came stamping into the room. I trembled in my shameful retreat.

The reflections of a young man of sensibility, ear-witness against his
will of the chaste and sanctioned familiarities of a man and wife, must
always be mingled of sweet and bitter; but when to the natural force of
these is added horror of a crime and the shame arising from discovery of
utter delusion, the reader may imagine the stormy sea of torment in
which I laboured. In a word, I was to discover a new Aurelia--Aurelia