“When I reflect, my dear cousin,” said she, “on the miserable death of Justine Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they before appeared to me. Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and injustice that I read in books or heard from others as tales of ancient days or imaginary evils; at least they were remote and more familiar to reason than to the imagination; but now misery has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other’s blood. Yet I am certainly unjust. Everybody believed that poor girl to be guilty; and if she could have committed the crime for which she suffered, assuredly she would have been the most depraved of human creatures. For the sake of a few jewels, to have murdered the son of her benefactor and friend, a child whom she had nursed from its birth, and appeared to love as if it had been her own! I could not consent to the death of any human being, but certainly I should have thought such a creature unfit to remain in the society of men. But she was innocent. I know, I feel she was innocent; you are of the same opinion, and and that confirms me. Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss. William and Justine were assassinated, and the murderer escapes; he walks about the world free, and perhaps respected. But even if I were condemned to suffer on the scaffold for the same crimes, I would not change places with such a wretch.”

I listened to this discourse with the extremest agony. I, not in deed, but in effect, was the true murderer. Elizabeth read my anguish in my countenance, and kindly taking my hand, said, “My dearest friend, you must calm yourself. These events have affected me, God knows how deeply; but I am not so wretched as you are. There is an expression of despair, and sometimes of revenge, in your countenance that makes me tremble. Dear Victor, banish these dark passions. Remember the friends around you, who centre all their hopes in you. Have we lost the power of rendering you happy? Ah! While we love, while we are true to each other, here in this land of peace and beauty, your native country, we may reap every tranquil blessing—what can disturb our peace?”

And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized before every other gift of fortune suffice to chase away the fiend that lurked in my heart? Even as she spoke I drew near to her, as if in terror, lest at that very moment the destroyer had been near to rob me of her.

Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe; the very accents of love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial influence could penetrate. The wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had pierced it, and to die, was but a type of me.

‘Yes,’ replied Mrs. Corney, bashfully.

‘He can’t live a week, the doctor says,’ pursued Mr. Bumble. ‘He is the master of this establishment; his death will cause a wacancy; that wacancy must be filled up. Oh, Mrs. Corney, what a prospect this opens! What a opportunity for a jining of hearts and housekeepings!’

Mrs. Corney sobbed.

‘The little word?’ said Mr. Bumble, bending over the bashful beauty. ‘The one little, little, little word, my blessed Corney?’

‘Ye—ye—yes!’ sighed out the matron.

‘One more,’ pursued the beadle; ‘compose your darling feelings for only one more. When is it to come off?’

Mrs. Corney twice essayed to speak: and twice failed. At length summoning up courage, she threw her arms around Mr. Bumble’s neck, and said, it might be as soon as ever he pleased, and that he was ‘a irresistible duck.’

Matters being thus amicably and satisfactorily arranged, the contract was solemnly ratified in another teacupful of the peppermint mixture; which was rendered the more necessary, by the flutter and agitation of the lady’s spirits. While it was being disposed of, she acquainted Mr. Bumble with the old woman’s decease.

‘Very good,’ said that gentleman, sipping his peppermint; ‘I’ll call at Sowerberry’s as I go home, and tell him to send to–morrow morning. Was it that as frightened you, love?’

‘It wasn’t anything particular, dear,’ said the lady evasively.

‘It must have been something, love,’ urged Mr. Bumble. ‘Won’t you tell your own B.?’

‘Not now,’ rejoined the lady; ‘one of these days. After we’re married, dear.’

‘After we’re married!’ exclaimed Mr. Bumble. ‘It wasn’t any impudence from any of them male paupers as—’

‘No, no, love!’ interposed the lady, hastily.

‘If I thought it was,’ continued Mr. Bumble; ‘if I thought as any one of ’em had dared to lift his wulgar eyes to that lovely countenance—’

‘They wouldn’t have dared to do it, love,’ responded the lady.

‘They had better not!’ said Mr. Bumble, clenching his fist. ‘Let me see any man, porochial or extra–porochial, as would presume to do it; and I can tell him that he wouldn’t do it a second time!’

Unembellished by any violence of gesticulation, this might have seemed no very high compliment to the lady’s charms; but, as Mr. Bumble accompanied the threat with many warlike gestures, she was much touched with this proof of his devotion, and protested, with great admiration, that he was indeed a dove.

The dove then turned up his coat–collar, and put on his cocked hat; and, having exchanged a long and affectionate embrace with his future partner, once again braved the cold wind of the night: merely pausing, for a few minutes, in the male paupers’ ward, to abuse them a little, with the view of satisfying himself that he could fill the office of workhouse–master with needful acerbity. Assured of his qualifications, Mr. Bumble left the building with a light heart, and bright visions of his future promotion: which served to occupy his mind until he reached the shop of the undertaker.