Displays Miss Sowersoft's character in a degree of perfection unparalleled on any previous exhibition.—Fanny's obstinacy incites Mrs. Clink to turn her adrift upon the world.

HAVING entered the room, Miss Sowersoft first peeped out to see that no listeners were in the neighbourhood, and then cautiously closed the door,—all the blood in her veins mustering up in red rebellion against poor Fanny, as she stared at that young woman through two dilated eyes, with something of the expression of a hand-grenade with a newly-lit fusee.

“Take a chair, Mrs. Clink,” said Miss Sowersoft, in a tone which denoted more than her ordinary attention to etiquette, as she still kept her eyes on Fanny, in order to make her feel her own insignificance the more keenly by the contrast; “do be seated;” and she drew up another chair for herself, while Fanny was left standing, as best became a servant—and a culprit. “Now, I am quite ready to begin.”

“Have it out of her at once—I would not stand on ceremony with anybody like her!”

“What is it, Fanny,” asked Mrs. Clink, “that the doctor has been talking to you about?”

“I cannot answer that,” replied Fanny. “I have promised to tell nobody, and I must keep my word.”

“There!—that's sufficient!” cried Miss Sowersoft, “that is plenty! You see what it is. She has promised, and will not explain it. I knew before, as well as if I had heard, how it would all be. She has compromised' herself, just as such a young face-proud hussy was sure to do. It is a wonder to me, Mrs. Clink, how you have contrived to keep her respectable so long.”

“I did not intend to talk to you, Miss Sowersoft,” replied, Fanny; “but I will tell you that I have always been too respectable for what you seem to think.”

“Answer me, Fanny,” interposed Mrs. Clink. “I am sure you will answer me.”

“I cannot, ma'am,” said Fanny.

“You positively will not, do you mean to say?”

“Indeed I cannot, because I have promised that I would not; but it is nothing of the least harm.”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Miss Sowersoft, “not the least harm!—to be sure not!—oh, no! She is very innocent, no doubt.”

“If I discharge you from service unless you do tell me, what then?” asked her mistress.

“I cannot help it if you do,” said Fanny, as she burst into tears at the bare mention of quitting that place which had been as a home to her nearly all her life.

“Then I positively insist either that you do tell me all about it, or stay with me no longer than until you can suit yourself elsewhere. I do not wish to part with you,—far from it. You have been with me almost all your life, and I should not like to see the day when you turned your back upon my door for the last time; but I cannot have this silence and secrecy about such an affair as the present. I have known enough, and more than enough, of the ruin and misery that may ensue, to allow of it in any young woman under my care. I cannot have it, Fanny, and will not have it; so you must make your choice.”

Fanny cried bitterly, and with some difficulty made herself understood amidst so many sobs and sighs, as she protested that she dared not tell more than she had told; that, on her solemn word, it was not about anything that could in the least injure her.

“Well, I must say I give her credit for what she says,'' remarked Mrs. Clink, in an under tone, to Miss Sowersoft.

“Give her a birch rod!” exclaimed the latter lady. “I wonder how you can allow yourself to be so easily imposed upon! It is all her artfulness, and nothing else. She is as cunning as Satan, and as deep as the day is long, she is! Ask her what made the doctor say he would do something for her,—let her unriddle that, if she can.”

Mrs. Clink accordingly continued the examination much in the manner already described, and with about the same success. Fanny resisted all inquiry as strenuously as at first, until at length Mrs. Clink gave her a formal warning to seek out for another situation, and to leave her present place as soon as she had found one. Fanny replied, that she would go begging rather than betray the trust reposed in her, as she believed that Providence would never let her starve for having done what was right.

“What a wicked wretch she is!” Miss Sowersoft exclaimed, when she had heard poor Fanny's expression of trust in a more just power than that which now condemned her; “I am sure her horrible wickedness turns me white to hear it.”

This female tribunal having dissolved itself, Fanny was dismissed up stairs again, and the other two ladies remained below to discuss in private the question of Colin's removal home, until such time as his recovery might admit of his return to the labours of the farm.

It will be quite sufficient to state, as the result of their deliberations, that within eight-and-forty hours afterwards our hero, being somewhat recovered, was laid on a bed placed in a cart, and carried home; that Fanny attended him there during some brief space of time afterwards, until she procured another situation, and left Mrs. Clink's service at once and for ever; and that these changes, together with some others of very superior importance, which I shall proceed immediately to relate, brought about such a “new combination of parties” amongst the personages, great and small, who have figured in our pages, as cannot fail, when explained, to throw great light upon the yet dark and abstruse points of this veritable history.