“This is very stupid!” cried Fanny, suddenly throwing down her pen; “and I don’t think I am improved at it;” and she half cried with vexation. Suddenly a bright idea crossed her. In the little parlour where the schoolmistress privately received her, she had seen among the books, and thought at the time how useful it might be to her if ever she had to write to Philip, a little volume entitled, The Complete Letter Writer. She knew by the title-page that it contained models for every description of letter—no doubt it would contain the precise thing that would suit the present occasion. She started up at the notion. She would go—she could be back to finish the letter before post-time. She put on her bonnet—left the letter, in her haste, open on the table—and just looking into the parlour in her way to the street door, to convince herself that Simon was asleep, and the wire-guard was on the fire, she hurried to the kind schoolmistress.
One of the fogs that in autumn gather sullenly over London and its suburbs covered the declining day with premature dimness. It grew darker and darker as she proceeded, but she reached the house in safety. She spent a quarter of an hour in timidly consulting her friend about all kinds of letters except the identical one that she intended to write, and having had it strongly impressed on her mind that if the letter was to a gentleman at all genteel, she ought to begin “Dear Sir,” and end with “I have the honour to remain;” and that he would be everlastingly offended if she did not in the address affix “Esquire” to his name (that, was a great discovery),—she carried off the precious volume, and quitted the house. There was a wall that, bounding the demesnes of the school, ran for some short distance into the main street. The increasing fog, here, faintly struggled against the glimmer of a single lamp at some little distance. Just in this spot, her eye was caught by a dark object in the road, which she could scarcely perceive to be a carriage, when her hand was seized, and a voice said in her ear:—
“Ah! you will not be so cruel to me, I hope, as you were to my messenger! I have come myself for you.”
She turned in great alarm, but the darkness prevented her recognising the face of him who thus accosted her. “Let me go!” she cried,—“let me go!”
“Hush! hush! No—no. Come with me. You shall have a house—carriage—servants! You shall wear silk gowns and jewels! You shall be a great lady!”
As these various temptations succeeded in rapid course each new struggle of Fanny, a voice from the coach-box said in a low tone,—
“Take care, my lord, I see somebody coming—perhaps a policeman!”
Fanny heard the caution, and screamed for rescue.
“Is it so?” muttered the molester. And suddenly Fanny felt her voice checked—her head mantled—her light form lifted from the ground. She clung—she struggled it was in vain. It was the affair of a moment: she felt herself borne into the carriage—the door closed—the stranger was by her side, and his voice said:—
“Drive on, Dykeman. Fast! fast!”