'Pretty expressions enough,' said I, 'only I cannot comprehend them.'
'Charming girl!' cried he, while he conjured up a fiend of a smile, and drew a brilliant from his finger, 'accept this ring, and the signature of the hand that has worn it, securing to you five hundred a-year, while you remain under my protection.'
'Ha, monster!' exclaimed I, 'and is this thy vile design?'
So saying, I flung the ruffian from me, then rushed down stairs, opened the door, and quick as lightning darted along the streets.
At last, panting for breath, I paused underneath a portico. It was now midnight. Not a wheel, not a hoof fatigued the pavement, or disturbed the slumbering mud of the metropolis. But soon steps and soft voices broke the silence, and a youth, encircling a maiden's waist with his arm, and modulating the most mellifluent phraseology, passed by me. Another couple succeeded, and another, and another. The town seemed swarming with heroes and heroines. 'Fortunate pairs!' ejaculated I, 'at length ye enjoy the reward of your incomparable constancy and virtue. Here, after a long separation, meeting by chance, and in extreme distress, ye pour forth the pure effusions of your souls. O blissful termination of unexampled miseries!'
I now perceived, on the steps of a house, a fair and slender form, robed in white. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side, within her hand.
'She seems a sister in misfortune,' said I; 'so, should she but have a Madona face, and a name ending in a, we will live, we will die together.'
I then approached, and discovered a countenance so pale, so pensive, so Roman, that I could almost have knelt and worshipped it.
'Fair unfortunate,' said I, taking her hand and pressing it; 'interesting unknown, say by what name am I to address so gentle a sister in misery.'
'Eh? What?' cried she, in a tone somewhat coarser than I was prepared to expect.