style="font-size:15px;"> "Dick," she said, suddenly-and halted abruptly in the road, "you must lend me a guinea."
"A guinea?" I cried, aghast, and speaking, it may be, with a little displeasure. "Why, have you not just-"
"What?" she said.
"Lost my only one."
She laughed with a recklessness that confounded me. "Well, you have got to find another one," she said. "And one to that!"
"Another guinea?" I gasped.
"Yes, another guinea, and another guinea!" she answered, mimicking my tone of consternation. "One for my shoes and stockings-oh, I wish he were dead!" And she stamped her foot passionately. "And one-"
"Yes?" I said, with a poor attempt at irony. "And one-?"
"For me to stake next Friday, when the Duke passes this way on his road home."
"He does not!"
"He does, he does!" she retorted. "And you will do too-what I say, sir! or-"
"Or what?" I cried, calling up a spirit for once.
"Or-" and she raised her voice a little, and sang:
"But alas, when I wake, and no Phyllis I find,
How I sigh to myself all alone!"
"You never loved me!" I cried, in a rage at that and her greed.
"Have it your own way!" she answered, carelessly, and sang it again; and after that there was no more talk, but we walked with all the width of the road between us; I with a sore heart and she titupping along, cool and happy, pleased, I think, that she had visited on me some of the chagrin which the stranger had caused her, and for the rest with God knows what thoughts in her heart. At least I little suspected them; yet, with the little knowledge I had, I was angry and pained; and for the time was so far freed from illusion that I would not make the overture, but hardened myself with the thought of my guinea and her selfishness; and coming to the gap in the first fence helped her over with a cold hand and no embrace such as was usual between us at such junctures.
In a word, we were like naughty children returning after playing truant; and might have parted in that guise, and this the very best thing that could have happened to me-who had no guinea, and knew not where to get one; though I would not go so far as to say that, in the frame of mind in which I then was, it would have saved me. But in the article of parting, and when the garden fence already rose between us, yet each remained plain to the other by the light of the moon which had risen, Dorinda on a sudden raised her hands, and holding her cloak from her, stood and looked at me an instant in the most ravishing fashion-with her head thrown back and her lips parted, and her eyes shining, and the white of her neck and her bare arms, and the swell of her bosom showing. I could have sworn that even the scent of her hair reached me, though that was impossible. But what I saw was enough. I might have known that she did it only to tantalize me: I might have known that she would show me what I risked; but on the instant, oblivious of all else, I owned her beauty, and resentment and my loss alike forgotten, sprang to the fence, my blood on fire, and words bubbling on my lips: Another second, and I should have been at her feet, have kissed her shoes muddy and broken as they were; but she turned, and with a backward glance, that only the more inflamed me, fled up the garden, and to the house, whither, even at my maddest, I dared not follow her.
However, enough had passed to send me to my bed to long and lie awake; enough, the morrow come, to take all colour from the grey tasks and dull drudgery of school-time; insomuch that the hours seemed days, and the days weeks, and Mr. D-'s ignorant prosing and infliction too wearisome to be borne. What my love now lacked of reverence, it made up in passion, and passion's offspring, impatience: on which it is to be supposed my mistress counted, since for three whole days she kept within, and though every evening I flew to the rendezvous, and there cooled my heels for an hour, she never showed herself.
Once, however, I heard her on the other side of the fence, singing:
"But alas, when I wake, and no Phyllis I find,
How I sigh to myself all alone!"
And, sick at heart, I understood the threat and her attitude. Nevertheless, and though the knowledge should have cured me, by convincing me that she was utterly unworthy and had never loved me, I only consumed the more for her, and grovelled the lower in spirit before her and her beauty; and the devil presently putting in my way the means where he had already provided the motive, it was no wonder that I made but a poor resistance, and in a short time fell.
It came about in this way. In the course of the week, and before the Friday on which the Duke was to return that way, Mr. D- announced an urgent call to London; and as he was too wise to broach such a proposal without a quid pro quo, Mrs. D- must needs go with him. The stage-wagon, which travelled three days in the week, would serve next morning, and all was hasty preparation; clothes were packed and mails got out; a gossip, one Mrs. Harris, was engaged to take Mrs. D-'s place, and the boys were entrusted to me, with strict instructions to see all lights out at night, and no waste. That these injunctions might be the more deeply impressed on me, I was summoned to Mrs. D-'s parlour to receive them; but unluckily with the instructions given to me were mingled housekeeping directions to Mrs. Harris, who was also present; the result being that when I retired from the room I carried with me the knowledge that in a certain desk, perfectly accessible, my employer left three guineas, to be used in case of emergency, but otherwise not to be touched.
It was an unhappy chance, explaining, as well as accounting for, so much of what follows, that were I to enter into long details of the catastrophe, it would be useless; since the judicious reader will have already informed himself of a result that was never in doubt, from the time that my employer's departure at once provided the means of gratification, and by removing the restraints under which we had before laboured, held out the prospect of pleasure. Nor can I plead that I sinned in ignorance; for as I sat among the boys and mechanically heard their tasks, I called myself, "Thief, thief," a hundred times, and a hundred to that; and once even groaned aloud; yet never flinched or doubted that I should take the money. Which I did-to cut a long story short-before Mr. D- had been three hours out of the house; and that evening humbly presented the whole of it to my mistress, who rewarded my complaisance with present kisses and future pledges, to be redeemed when she should have once more tasted the pleasures of the great world.
To tell the truth, her craving for these, and to be seen again in those haunts where we had reaped nothing but loss and mortification, was a continual puzzle to me, who asked for nothing better than to enjoy her society and kindness, as far as possible from the world. But as she would go and would play, and made my subservience in this matter the condition of her favour, it was essential she should win; since I could then restore the money I had taken; whereas if she lost, I saw no prospect before me but the hideous one of detection and punishment. Accordingly, when the evening came, and we had effected the same clandestine exodus as before-but this time with less peril, Mrs. Harris being a sleepy, easy-going woman-I could think of nothing but this necessity; and far from experiencing the terrors which had beset me before, when Dorinda would enter the inn, gave no thought to the scene or the crowd through which we pushed, or any other of the preliminaries, but had my soul so set upon the fortune that awaited us, that I was for passing through the door in the hardiest fashion, and would scarcely stand even when a hand gripped my shoulder. However, a rough voice exclaiming in my ear, "Softly, youngster! Who are you that poke in so boldly? I don't know you," brought me to my senses.
"I was in last week," I answered, gasping with eagerness.
"Then you were one too many," the doorkeeper retorted, thrusting me back without mercy. "This is not a tradesman's ordinary. It is for your betters."
"But
