A woman sat sewing near my berth in the state-room in which I found myself; a fan, lying on a small table at her side, betokened in what manner she had divided her attentions between her needle and her helpless charge. I thought; indeed, that I had felt its soft plumes glide gently across my face in the very moment of my awakening in the first amazement of which I but dimly comprehended the circumstances that surrounded me.

“What brought this stranger to my pillow! Who and what was she? Where was I!” These were my mental queries at the first. Then, as the truth gradually dawned over my sluggish and bewildered brain, I lay quietly revolving matters, and noticed my self-constituted nurse, and my surroundings, with the close yet careless observation of a child.

The woman, on whom my gaze was earliest fixed (while her own seemed riveted on the work upon her knee), was of middle age or beyond it, of medium size, of square and sturdy make, and homely to the very verge of ugliness. She was dressed plainly if not commonly in black, but there was a general air of decency about her that seemed to place her beyond the sphere of servitude. She wore spectacles set in tortoise-shell frames, and she wore her iron-gray hair straight back behind small, funnel-shaped ears, and gathered into the tightest knot behind. Her head was flat and narrow at the summit, though broad at and above the base of the brain. Her forehead, wide yet low, was ignoble in expression. The mouth, shaped like a horseshoe, was curved down at the corners, and was full of sullen resolution. The nose, pinched, yet not pointed, showed scarcely any nostril, and might as well have been made of wood, for any meaning it betrayed. Her eyebrows were short, wide, rugged, and irregular, though very black; the cast-down eyes, of course, so far inscrutable.

She was shaping a flimsy, black-silk dress, and doing it deftly, though it was a marvel to me how hands so stiff and cramped as hers appeared to be could handle a needle at all.

On one of these gnarled and unlovely fingers she wore a ring which, in the idleness of the mood that possessed me, I examined listlessly. It was an old-fashioned and slender circle of gold, so pale that it looked silvery, such as in times long past had commonly been used either for troth-plight or marriage-vows, surmounted by two small united hearts of the same dull metal by way of ornament. Mrs. Austin, I remembered, possessed one, the aversion of my childhood, that seemed its counterpart.

My weary eyes wandered from her at last, to take in the accessories of my chamber, tiny as this was, and I saw that against the wall were hanging a gentleman’s greatcoat and hand-satchel. Cigars and books were piled on the same table which held the spool and scissors of my companion, and a pair of cloth slippers, embroidered with colored chenilles and quilted lining, of masculine size and shape, reposed upon the floor. A cane and umbrella were secured neatly in a small corner rack. There were no traces, I saw, of feminine occupancy beyond the transient implements of industry alluded to.

Suddenly, in their languid, listless roving, my eyes encountered those of my attendant fixed full upon me, while a smile distorted the homely, sallow face, disclosing a set of yellow teeth, sound, short, and strong, like regular grains of corn.

In those eyes, in that mouth and saffron teeth, lay the whole power and character of this repulsive and disagreeable physiognomy.

Those feline orbs of mingled gray and green, with their small, pointed pupils, were keen, vigilant, and observing beyond all eyes it had ever before or since been my lot to encounter. After meeting their penetrating glance I was not surprised to hear their possessor accost me in clear, metallic tones, that seemed only the result of her gift of insight, and consistent with it.

“You are awake and yourself again, young lady, I am glad to see! You have slept very quietly for the last few hours, and your fever is wellnigh broken. Will you have some food now? You need it; you must be weak.”

“Yes, very weak; but not hungry at all. I do not want to eat. Just let me lie quietly awhile. It is such enjoyment.”

She complied silently and judiciously with my request.

After a satisfactory pause, during which I had gradually collected my ideas, I inquired, suddenly:

“How long is it since we were lifted from the raft, and where are the other survivors?”

“All safe, I believe, and onboard, well cared for, like yourself. It has been nearly two days since your raft was overhauled. This was what the captain called it,” and she smiled.

“The baby where is he? I hope he lived.”

“Yes, he is at last out of danger, and we have obtained a nurse for him. He would only trouble you now; but it is very natural you should be anxious about him.”

“Yes, he was my principal care on the raft, and I do not wish to lose sight of him. When I am better, you must let him share my room until we reach our friends.”

“Oh, certainly!” and again she smiled her evil smile. “No one, so far as I know of, has any right or wish to separate you; but, for the present, you are better alone.”

“Yes, I am strangely weak confused, even,” and I passed my hand over my blistered face and dishevelled hair with something of the feeling of the little woman in the story who doubted her own identity. Alas! there was not even a familiar dog to bark and determine the vexed question, “Is this I?”

Helpless as an infant, flaccid as the sea-weed when taken from its native element, feeble in mind from recent suffering, broken in body, I was cast on the mercies of strangers, ignorant, until they saw me, of my existence, yet not indifferent to it, as their care testified.

“You will take some food now,” said the woman, kindly, “Your weakness is not unfavorable, since it proves the fierce fever broken; but you must hasten to gather strength for what lies before you. We shall be in port to-morrow.”

I put away the spoon with an impatient gesture. “I cannot; it nauseates me but to see it, to think of it. Strength will come of itself.”

“Oh, no; that is impossible. Besides, the doctor has ordered panada, and I am responsible to him for your safety. Come, now, be reasonable. This is very nice, seasoned with madeira and nutmeg.”

Making a strong effort to overcome my repugnance, I received one spoonful of the proffered aliment, then sank back on my pillow, soothed and comforted, not more by the unexpectedly good effects of the compound, than the associations it conjured up, of my sick childhood, of Mrs. Austin, and of Dr. Pemberton.

“Ah! you smile; that is a good sign,” said the woman; “favorable every way. We shall have no more delirium now, I hope; no more ’bears and serpents’ about the berth; no more calls for ‘Bertie’ and ’Captain Wentworth,’ and you will soon be able to tell us all about yourself and your people all we want to know.”

I must have lapsed again into reverie rather than slumber, from which I was partly aroused by whispering voices at the door, one of which seemed familiar to me. Yet this fact or fancy made little impression on me at the moment, feeble and wretched as was my will, undiscriminating as were my faculties.

And when the door opened, and a lady entered, I did not seek to inquire about her interlocutor. Respectfully rising from her seat beside me, my companion left it vacant for her, to whom she introduced me as her mistress, and stood, work in hand, sewing beneath the skylight, while the new-comer remained in the state-room.

A handsome woman, tall and fashionably attired, apparently between thirty and forty years of age, square face, dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked, and with curling hair, approached me with uplifted hands and eyebrows as I lay gazing calmly upon her; for my food and slumber together had strengthened and revived me wonderfully in the last few hours, and my senses were again collected.

“Awake, and herself again, as I live, even if we cannot say yet truthfully ’clothed and in her right mind.’ Eh, Clayton?” with a sneering simper; “and what eyes, what teeth, to be sure! Then the dreadful redness is going away, though the skin will scale, of course; but no matter for that; all the fairer in the end. And what a special mercy that her hair is saved! You have to thank me for that, young lady. I would not let the ship’s doctor touch a strand of it not a strand. ’One does not grow a yard and a half of hair in a month, or a year, doctor,’ I observed, ’and a woman might as well be dead at once, or mad, or a man, as have cropped hair during all the days of her youth.’ I had a fellow-feeling, you see! I have magnificent hair myself, child, as Clayton well knows, for it is her chief trouble on earth, and I would almost as lief die as lose it.”

“Yes, indeed, Lady Anastasia’s hair is one of her chief attractions,” observed the sympathizing Clayton, behind her chair.

“So Sir Harry Raymond thought, my dear “ addressing me “when I married him, ten years ago; and so somebody else thinks just now, for I am tired of my widowhood, and intend taking on the conjugal yoke again as soon as I reach ”

“New York,” interpolated Mrs. Clayton, hastily and emphatically; clearing her throat slightly, by way of apology, perhaps, for her officiousness.

“And you shall stand bridesmaid, my dear. Yes, I am determined on it; so never make great eyes at me. There is a little bit of romance about me that will strike out in spite of all my worldliness; and it will be so pretty to have an ’ocean-waif for an attendant it will read so well in the papers! I suppose, when you reach your friends, there will be no difficulty about a dress, and all that sort of thing, meet for the occasion a very splendid one, I assure you conducted without regard to expense; for my fiance is very rich, I hear, and my own jointure was a liberal one.”

“You do me a great honor,” I murmured, conventionally rebelling inwardly at the suggestion.

“Oh, not at all!” was the gracious rejoinder. “I see at a glance, in spite of your misfortunes, that you are one of us, which is not what I say to everybody. True blood will show under all circumstances, though there is such an improvement. Did any one ever see the like before? Why, my dear, you were blistered and black when we picked you up, and afterward sienna-colored; now you are almost a beauty!”

“I am better much better, and have a great deal to be thankful for, I feel,” I contented myself with murmuring.

“Of course you have. It was just a chance with you between our ship and death, you know. By-the-by, what name shall we give our ‘treasure-trove?’”

“Miriam for the present, if you please. This is no time nor place for ceremony.”

“Well, Miriam it shall be,” she repeated with laughing eyes (hers were of that sort which close and grow Chinese under the pressure of merriment and high cheekbones combined). “Miriam, I like the name there is something grand about it.”

“But how shall we know where to find your friends when we get to port?” asked my first attendant. “We must know more than your Christian name for such a purpose. You must place confidence in us, you must indeed!”

“Be patient with me,” I entreated. “I am much too feeble yet to give you the details that may be necessary. When we reach New York, you shall know every thing: or is it, indeed, to that place this ship is bound?”

“I thought you knew all about your destination by this time,” replied Lady Anastasia Raymond. “Yes, yes, New York of course!” and again she laughed. “Didn’t you hear Clayton say so?”

Just then a sharp tap at the door was answered by Lady Anastasia, who went quickly from beneath the curtain hung across it (in consideration, no doubt, of the privacy my illness enjoined), but not before I had caught once, and this time clearly, the tones of a voice that thrilled to my life, the same that had haunted my delirious fancy, I now remembered, through the last four-and-twenty hours.

I rose to my elbow impulsively, only to fall back again utterly exhausted.

“Who was that speaking?” I asked, feebly; “can it be possible ” and I wrung my hands.

“It was the ship’s doctor,” interrupted the woman I had heard called Clayton by her mistress. “He had not time to do more than inquire about you, I suppose, there are so many ill in the steerage; but he has been very kind and will probably return.”

“I hope so,” I rejoined; “I should like to realize that voice as his. It has haunted me very disagreeably in my dreams, and the tones are those of an old, old acquaintance, one I should be sorry to see here.”

“I do not believe you have an acquaintance on the ship,” she said, simply. “Under the circumstances any such person would certainly have discovered himself; your situation would have moved a heart of stone.”

“But it is sometimes wise for the wicked to lie perdu,” I murmured, and conjecture was busy in my brain. “I should be glad, too, to see the captain of this vessel at his earliest convenience,” I added, after a pause. “Will you be so good as to apprise him in person of my earnest wish? It would be a real charity.”

“Oh, certainly; but I am afraid he cannot come to-night. It is nearly evening now, and he never leaves the deck at this hour, nor until very late.”

“To-morrow, then, I must insist on this interview, since I reflect about it, for several reasons.”

“To-morrow he shall come,” she said, sententiously; “and now try and sleep again. It is very necessary you should gather strength, for we shall be in port shortly, when all will be confusion.”

I went to sleep, I remember, murmuring to myself: “The hands were the hands of Jacob, but the voice was the voice of Esau;” and my bewildered faculties found rest until the morning’s dawn.

After a hasty toilet made by the careful hands of Mrs. Clayton, a matutinal visit made by Mrs. or Lady Raymond, who always rose early as she informed me, and a cup of tea, very soothing to my prostrated nerves, the potentate of the Latona was duly announced.

Our ship’s master was a tall, gaunt, sandy-haired man, with steady gray eyes, hard features, and enormous hands and feet, the first freckled and awkward, the last so long as very nearly to span the space between his seat (a small Spanish-leather trunk) and the berth I reposed in. He entered without his hat; and the swoop of the head he made to avoid the entanglement of the curtain was supposed to do double duty, and serve as a bow to the inmate of his state-room as well, for his I supposed it to be at the time, and he did not contradict me.

“I hope you find yourself comfortable, marm, on board of my ship.”

“And in your state-room, captain?” I interrupted promptly.

“Wall, you see it all belongs to me, kinder,” he said, after seating himself, as he rubbed his huge, projecting knees, plainly indicated through his nankeen trousers, with his capacious, horny hands. “I’m not very particular, though, where I sleep on shipboard, but at home there’s few more so.”

“I thought a captain was more at home on shipboard than anywhere else,” I pursued mechanically; “such is the theory at least.”

“Oh, not at all, not at all; when he has a snug nest on land, with a wife and children waiting to receive him. You might as well talk of a man in the new settlements bein’ more at home in his wagon than in his neat, hewn-log cabin.”

“A very good simile, captain, and one that kills the ancient theory outright. Let me thank you, however, before we proceed further, for all the kindness and attention I have received in this floating castle of yours, both from you and others. I hope and believe that my companions in misfortune have fared as well.”

“Wall, they have not wanted for nothing as far as I knew the poor baby in particular;” and, as he spoke, he roughed his hair with one hand and smiled into my face a huge, honest, gummy smile, inexpressibly reassuring.

“The man is hideous and repulsive,” I thought; “but infinitely preferable, somehow, to the specimen of English aristocracy and her maid who have constituted themselves so far my guardian angels” a twinge of ingratitude here, which I resented instantly by settling my patriotic prejudices to be at the root of the thing, and rebuking my mistrust sternly though silently. “Yet that voice how could I be mistaken?” and again I addressed myself to the task before me, having gotten through all preliminaries.

While I sat hesitating as to what I should say, so as to both guard against and conceal my suspicions from the captain’s scrutiny, if, indeed, he might be supposed to possess such a quality, I observed that he drew from his pocket a long slip of newspaper, in which he appeared to bury himself for a time, when not glancing furtively at me, as if waiting impatiently for the coming revelation.

“I have sent for you, Captain Van Dorne,” I said, at last, in very low and even tones, not calculated to reach outside ears, however vigilant, and yet not suppressed by any means to whispers “I have sent for you,” and my heart beat quickly as I spoke, “not merely to thank you for your hospitable kindness, but because I wish, for reasons that I cannot now explain, to place myself under your especial care until I reach my friends.”

“Certainly, certainly; but you air among your friends already if you could only think so,” he answered, evasively, still caressing his potato knees with large and outspread hands.

“Do not for one moment deem me unmindful of much kindness, or ungrateful to those who have bestowed it,” I hastened to explain. “Yet I cannot deny that a fear possesses me that among your passengers may be found one whom I esteem, not without sufficient cause, my greatest enemy.”

“Poor thing! poor thing! what put such a strange fancy into your head? An enemy in my ship! Why, there is not a man on board who would not cut off his right hand rather than harm one hair of your poor, witless, defenseless head! There was not a dry eye on the deck when you and the rest wuz lifted from the raft!”

“I understand this prevalence of sympathy for misfortune perfectly, and honor it; yet I have heard a voice since my immurement in this cabin which must belong” and I whispered the dreaded name “to Mr. Basil Bainrothe!”

As I spoke I eyed him steadily, and I fancied that his cheek flushed and his eye wavered that clear and honest eye which had given him a high place in my consideration from the moment I met its’ gaze.

“You must have been delirious-like when you conceited you heerd that strange voice,” he said, presently.

“I’ll send you my passenger-list if you choose, and you can read it over keerfully. I don’t think you’ll find that name, though, in its kolyums,” shaking his head sagaciously.

“Captain Van Dome, do you mean to say there is no such passenger in your ship’s list as Basil Bainrothe?” I asked, desperately.

“That’s what I mean to say.”

“Give me your honor on this point. It is a vital one to me. Your honor!”

He hesitated and looked around. Just at this moment of apparent uncertainty, a slight tap was heard on the ground-glass eye above us that threw a sullen and unwilling light upon the scene of our interview. It seemed to nerve him strangely.

“On my word of honor, as an American seaman, I assure you that the name of Basil Bainrothe is not on the ship’s list at this present speaking;” and, as he spoke, he held up his right hand, adding, as he dropped it, doggedly, “Ef the man’s on board I don’t know it!”

“It is enough I believe you, Captain Van Dorne. And now I want to ask you, as a parting grace, to convey me yourself to the Astor House, and place my watch” (detaching it from my neck as I spoke) “in the hands of the proprietors as a proof of my honest intentions. For yourself, I shall seek another opportunity.”

“Not at all not at all!” he interrupted. “Keep your watch, young lady. No such pledge will be required by them proprietors; and, as to myself, if it had not been for this paper,” drawing from his pocket, and flattening on his knees as he spoke, the slip I had before observed, then glancing at me sharply, “I could never have believed that such a pretty-spoken, pretty-behaved young creetur could have been non com. But pshaw! what am I talking about? This paper is as old as last year’s krout! You don’t keer nothing about seeing of it, do you, now?” and he crumpled it in his hand.

“Not unless it concerns me in some way, Captain Van Dorne,” I said, coldly. His manner had suddenly become offensive to me, and I longed to see him depart, having ’transacted my affairs, as far, at least, as I deemed it prudent to insist on such transaction.

“It may be,” I added, “that, on reaching the port of New York, a friend or friends who expected me on the Kosciusko may be in waiting to receive me; that is, if the fate of that vessel be not already known. In that case, I shall not be obliged to avail myself of your services, and will acquaint you; but, otherwise, promise that you will conduct me from the ship yourself, either to the hotel or to your wife, as you prefer.”

“Wall, I promise you,” he said, doggedly, as he prepared literally to undouble his long frame before executing another dive beneath my door-guarding drapery, and with this brief assurance I was fain to rest content.

At all events, I was reassured on one subject those honest eyes, that frank if ugly mouth had no acquaintance with lies, or the father of them, I saw at once; and the voice of the ship’s doctor had for the nonce deceived my practised ear, overstrung by suspicion enfeebled by suffering.

So I rested calmly until the afternoon, with Mrs. Clayton sewing silently by my side, when with a little tap Lady Anastasia (or Mrs. Raymond, as she declared she preferred to be called by “Americans”) entered, bearing a basket in her hand, and wearing on her head a Dunstable bonnet simply trimmed, which she came, she said, to place, along with other articles of dress, at my disposal.

It had not occurred to me before that, in order to go on shore respectably clad, some attire very different from a bed-gown would be essential, and I could but feel grateful for such proofs of unselfish consideration on the part of strangers, pitying both my indigence and imbecility, and so expressed myself.

In accordance with their generous intentions, I submitted myself to be arrayed by Mrs. Clayton and her mistress: first, in the flimsy black-silk gown now completed, on which I had seen my attendant working when I first unclosed my eyes after long unconsciousness, and the measure which she had taken, while I lay in this condition, as coolly in all probability as an undertaker measures a corpse for its shroud; secondly, in a cardinal of the same material, a wrapping cut in the shape in vogue at that period; thirdly, in certain loosely-fitting boots and gloves with which I was fain to cover up my naked feet and blistered hands in forma pauperis and, lastly, in the collarette and cuffs provided by the economic and considerate Lady Anastasia, composed of cotton lace! The Dunstable bonnet was hung upon a peg in readiness, and I was kindly counseled to lie still, “accoutred as I was,” and exhausted by means of such accoutrement as I felt, until evening should find us riding in our harbor.

Then there was a little, low consulting at the door with the renowned “ship’s doctor,” who positively refused to approach me because he had just come from a case of ship-fever in the steerage, which he feared to communicate to one in my precarious state, but who sent in his imperative orders that I should have soup and sherry-cobbler forthwith, and try and build up my strength for the time of debarkation speaking in a low, growling voice divested of its former clearness, but still strangely resembling that of Basil Bainrothe!

“The poor man is so fagged out,” said Mrs. Clayton, as she brought in my broth and wine, “that his very voice is changed. He is a good soul, and has shown you great interest. Some day you must send him a present, that is, if you are able; but just now all you have to think of is getting safe ashore. Lady Anastasia will go to her friends, probably, or to those of the gentleman she is engaged to; but I do not mean to forsake you until I see you better, and in good hands.”

I know not how it was that my heart sank so strangely at this announcement. The woman was kind tender, even and had probably saved my life, and yet her presence to me was a punishment worse than pain, a positive evil greater than any other.

“I shall go to the Astor House,” I faltered. “The captain has promised me his escort thither.”

“Yes, yes, I know, he has told me all about it; but your friends may not be in waiting, and it is simply our duty to see you in their hands. And now drink your sangaree. See, I have broken a biscuit in the glass, and it is well seasoned with lemon and nutmeg. There, now, that is right; a few spoonfuls of soup, and you will feel strengthened for your undertaking. I will sit quietly in the corner until you have your rest.”

“No, I prefer to see Christian Garth before I try to sleep the man who steered our raft and the young girl he saved, and the baby let them all come to me, and we will go on shore together.”

I spoke these words with a sort of desperation, as though they contained my last hope of justice or protection from a fate which, however obscurely, seemed to threaten me, as we feel the thunder-storm brooding in the tranquil atmosphere of summer.

“Christian Garth!” she repeated, looking at me over her tortoise-shell spectacles, and, quietly drawing out a snuffbox of the same material, she proceeded to fill her narrow nostrils therewith. “Why, that shaggy-looking old sailor, and the girl, and the old negro woman and child, went on shore at daylight this morning. He hailed a Jersey craft, and they all left together. It is perfectly understood, though, that the child is to be returned to you if you desire its company, but, if I were situated as you are, and sure of its safety, I would never want to see it again. It would be better off dead than living anyhow, under the circumstances, poor, deformed creature better for both of you.”

The words came to me distinctly, yet as if from an immense distance, and I seemed to see the small chamber lengthening as if it had been a telescope unfolding, and the sallow woman with her hateful smile and tightly-knotted, brindled hair seated in diminished size and distinctness at its farthest extremity.

So had I felt on that fearful night when Evelyn had made her revelation and received mine, and I did not doubt, even in my sinking state, that I was under the influence of a powerful anodyne.

“Call the ship’s doctor I am dying!” were the last words I remember to have articulated; then all was dark, and hours went by, of deep, unconscious sleep.

It was night when I felt myself drawn to my feet, and roused to life by the repeated applications of cold water to my face. “The anodyne was over-powerful,” I heard Mrs. Raymond say. “It is a shame to tamper with such strong medicines.”

“Oh, she has strength for any thing!” was Clayton’s rejoinder. “I never saw such a constitution and he knew what he was doing.”

“No doubt of that. But, dear Miss Miriam, do speak to me. I am so frightened at your lethargic condition. I declare I am sorry I ever consented to have any thing to do with this matter! See how she stands. I cannot think it was right, Clayton, I cannot, indeed; I dislike the whole drama.”

“Do be quiet! She is coming to herself fast, and what will she think of such expressions? You never had any self-control in your life, and you are playing for great stakes now.” These last words in a hoarse whisper.

“Nonsense! mother.”

“Again! How often must I warn you?”

“Well, Clayton, then, now and forever.”

“Here! rouse up, little one! We are fast anchored in port, and the captain is waiting for us, for we go part of the way together, and our escorts have all failed us yours and mine. Nice fellows, are they not?”

I sat up and looked about me bewildered; yet I had heard distinctly every word spoken in the last few minutes, and remembered them for future observance, without having had the power to move or articulate a remonstrance.

“Now, drink this strong coffee, and all will be well again,” said Clayton, putting a cup of the smoking beverage to my lips, which I swallowed eagerly, instinctively. The effect was instantaneous, and I was able to speak and stand, as well as hear and comprehend, while my bonnet was being tied on, and my throat muffled in a veil, by the dexterous fingers of Lady Anastasia.

When this process was completed, she stooped down and kissed me, and I felt a hot tear fall upon my cheek as she rose again. In the next moment I was clinging to the captain’s arm, with a spasmodic feeling of relief for which I could ill account. We passed across the plank which connected the ship with the shore in utter darkness, guided by a twinkling light far ahead, borne by a seaman, reached the dusky quay, with its few flaring lamps, made dim by drizzling rain and summer mist, and before many minutes we paused before one of a long line of coaches.

The captain handed me in, then, standing before the open door, seemed to await the coming of some other person before taking his own place the dreaded Clayton, I knew; but I could not remonstrate against what seemed an ordinary courtesy, and perhaps a step suggested by his innate notions of propriety.

At any other time I might have agreed with him; but, feeble as I was, and still bewildered, my whole object seemed to be to escape from the sphere and power of those women, who had been most kind to me, yet whom I instinctively dreaded and abhorred.

They came together, the mother and daughter, in their travesty of mistress and maid enough of itself to excite suspicion of foul play and climbed up the rickety steps of the hackney-coach, rejoicing over their victim. It mattered not; the captain would make the fourth passenger, and in his shadow I felt there were strength and security.

“What are you waiting for, Captain Van Dorne?” I had just feebly asked, as the door snapped-to, and the driver mounted his box. A hand was thrust through the window for all reply, and a card dropped upon my lap, which I hastened to secure in the depths of my pocket. By the merest chance, I found it there on the morrow, and later I comprehended its import, so mysterious to me at the moment of perusal.

“My poor young lady, you must forgive me for disappointing you, and hidin’ the truth, for your own sake. May God bless and restore you, and bring you to a proper sense of his mercies, is the prayer of your servant to command, JOSEPH VAN DORNE.”

My frame of mind was a very different one when I read this scrawl, from that which bewildered and oppressed me on that never-to-be-forgotten night of suffering and distress, both mental and physical. Formed of those elements which readily react, courage and calmness had returned to me before I read the oracle of our worthy shipmaster; for, in spite of his disastrous dealing with me on that occasion, misguided as he was by others, I have reason to so consider him.

But now the influence of the drug that had been given me so recently, doubtless through want of judgment, by the ship’s doctor, was felt in every nerve; and, as the carriage rolled up the stony quay, I clung convulsively to Mrs. Raymond, and buried my face and aching forehead in her shoulder, with a strange revulsion of feeling.

“You dread the darkness,” she said, kindly, putting her arm around me as she spoke; “but it is only for a time; we shall soon come out into the open lamp-light of ”

“Broadway, New York,” interrupted Clayton, sententiously; “a very poor sight to see, to one who has lived abroad. Have you ever crossed the waters, Miss Miriam? But I see you are quite faint and overcome. Here, smell this ether, that the ship’s doctor put up expressly for your use, and recommended highly as a new restorative much in fashion in Paris.”

Had the ship’s doctor no name, then, that they never mentioned it, and that he spoke in a demon’s voice? His doses I had proved, and was resolved to take no more of them, and I pushed away the phial, whose cold glass nose was thrust obtrusively against my own pushed it away with all my strength, fast ebbing away as this was, even as I made the effort.

The cruel potion had possession of me, and entered into every fibre of my brain through the avenues prepared for it by the treacherous anodyne; so that, enervated and intoxicated, I yielded passively, after a brief struggle, to the power of the then newly-invented sedative, called chloroform.

When the carriage stopped, or whither it transported me, or who lifted my insensible form to the chamber prepared for me, I know not never knew. There was a faint reviving, I remember; a process of disrobing gone through by the aid of foreign assistance (whose, I recognized not), then I slumbered profoundly and securely through the entire night, to recover no clearness of perception until a late hour on the following morning.