a step noiseless as a spectre's, and, grasping Losely firmly by the hand,
led him into a chill, dank, sunless drawing-room, gazing into his face
fixedly all the while.

He winced and writhed. "There, there, let us sit down, my dear Mrs.
Crane."

"And once I was called Bella."

"Ages ago! Basta! All things have their end. Do take those eyes of
yours off my face; they were always so bright! and--really--now they are
perfect burning-glasses! How close it is! Peuh! I am dead tired. May
I ask for a glass of water; a drop of wine in it--or--brandy will do as
well."

"Ho! you have come to brandy and morning drams, eh, Jasper?" said Mrs.
Crane, with a strange, dreary accent. "I, too, once tried if fire could
burn up thought, but it did not succeed with me; that is years ago; and-
there--see the bottles are full still!"

While thus speaking, she had unlocked a chiffonniere of the shape usually
found in "genteel lodgings," and taken out a leathern spirit-case
containing four bottles, with a couple of wine-glasses. This case she
placed on the table before Mr., Losely, and contemplated him at leisure
while he helped himself to the raw spirits.

As she thus stood, an acute student of Lavater might have recognized, in
her harsh and wasted countenance, signs of an original nature superior to
that of her visitor; on her knitted brow, a sense higher in quality than
on his smooth low forehead; on her straight stern lip, less cause for