A light gleamed at the most distant end of the apartment, and a slight

but graceful girl approached the stranger. She was habited in a close

vest of grey cloth: her head covered with a linen cap, devoid of any

ornament; from under the plain border of which, a stream of hair

appeared, tightly drawn across a forehead of beautiful colour and

proportions.

"Will you please to follow, sir, to my master's study?"

Dalton turned suddenly round; the entire expression of his countenance

softened, and his firm-set lips opened, as if a word laboured to come

forth, and was retained only by an effort.

"Will you not follow, good sir?" repeated the girl, anxiously but

mildly. "My master is ill at ease, and wishes to return to my lady's

room: it may be----"

The sentence remained unfinished, and tears streamed afresh down cheeks

already swollen with weeping.

"Your name, girl?" inquired the stranger, eagerly.

"Barbara Iverk," she replied, evidently astonished at the question. He

seized her arm, and, while gazing earnestly in her face, murmured in a

tone of positive tenderness,-"Are you happy?"

"I praise the Lord for his goodness! ever since I have been here, I have

been most happy; but my dear lady, who was so kind to me----" Again her

tears returned.

"You do not know me?--But you could not." Hugh Dalton gradually relaxed

his hold, and pulled from his bosom a purse heavy with Spanish

pieces--he presented it to the girl, but she drew back her hand and

shook her head.

"Take it, child, and buy thee a riding-hood, or a farthingale, or some

such trumpery, which thy vain sex delight in."

"I lack nothing, good sir, I thank ye; and, as to the coined silver, it

is only a tempter to the destruction of body and soul."

"As it may be used--as it may be used," repeated the sailor quickly;

"one so young would not abuse it."

"Wisdom might be needed in the expenditure; and I have heard that want

of knowledge is the forerunner of sin. Besides, I ask your pardon, good

sir, but strangers do not give to strangers, unless for charity; and I

lack nothing."

She dropped so modest a courtesy, and looked so perfectly and purely

innocent, that moisture, as unusual as it might be unwelcome, dimmed the

eyes of the stern man of ocean; and as he replaced the dollars, he

muttered something that sounded like, "I thank God she is

uncontaminated!" He then followed the gentle girl through many passages,

and up and down more than one flight of stairs: they both at length

stopped before a door that was thickly plated with iron.




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