Soon Miss Binx would lag behind, and—shall I own it?—would make up for the lost society of her female friend by the company of a man, a friend of the professor, mysterious and agreeable as himself. May the mistresses of all the establishments for young ladies in this kingdom, or queendom rather, peruse this, and reflect how dangerous it is for young ladies of any age,—ay, even for parlour-boarders—to go out alone! In the present instance Miss Grampus enjoyed a more than ordinary liberty, it is true: when the elder Misses Pidge would remonstrate, Miss Zela would anxiously yield to her request; and why?—the reason may be gathered from the following conversation which passed between the infatuated girl and the wily maître de danse.
"How, Roderick," would Adeliza say, "how, in the days of our first acquaintance, did it chance that you always addressed yourself to that odious Zela Pidge, and never deigned to breathe a syllable to me?"
"My lips didn't speak to you, Addly," (for to such a pitch of familiarity had they arrived,) "but my heyes did."
Adeliza was not astonished by the peculiarity of his pronunciation, for, to say truth, it was that commonly adopted in her native home and circle. "And mine," said she tenderly, "they followed when yours were not fixed upon them, for then I dared not look upwards. And though all on account of Miss Pidge you could not hear the accents of my voice, you might have heard the beatings of my heart!"
"I did, I did," gasped Roderick; "I eard them haudibly. I never spoke to you then, for I feared to waken that foul friend sispicion. I wished to henter your seminary, to be continually near you, to make you love me; therefore I wooed the easy and foolish Miss Pidge, therefore I took upon me the disguise of—ha! ha!—of a dancing-master." (And the young man's countenance assumed a grim and demoniac smile.) "Yes; I degraded my name and my birthright,—I wore these ignoble trappings, and all for the love of thee, my Adeliza!" Here Signor Dandolo would have knelt down, but the road was muddy; and, his trousers being of nankeen, his gallant purpose was frustrated.
But the story must out, for the conversation above narrated has betrayed to the intelligent reader a considerable part of it. The fact is, as we have said, that Miss Zela Pidge, dancing at the Hackney assembly, was introduced to this man; that he had no profession,—no means even of subsistence; that he saw enough of this lady to be aware that he could make her useful to his purpose; and he who had been, we believe it in our conscience, no better than a travelling mountebank or harlequin, appeared at Bulgaria House in the character of a professor of gymnastics. The governess in the first instance entertained for him just such a penchant as the pupil afterwards felt; the latter discovered the weakness of her mistress, and hence arose Miss Pidge's indulgence, and Miss Grampus's fatal passion.
"Mysterious being!" continued Adeliza, resuming the conversation which has been broken by the above explanatory hints, "how did I learn to love thee? Who art thou?—what dire fate has brought thee hither in this lowly guise to win the heart of Adeliza?"
"Hadeliza," cried he, "you say well; I am not what I seem. I cannot tell thee what I am; a tale of horror, of crime, forbids the dreadful confession. But dark as I am, and wretched, nay, wicked and desperate, I love thee, Hadeliza,—love thee with the rapturous devotion of purer days: the tenderness of happier times! I am sad now and fallen, lady; suffice it that I once was happy, ay, respectable."
Adeliza's cheek grew deadly pale, her step faltered, and she would have fallen to the ground, had she not been restrained by the strong arm of her lover. "I know not," said she, as she clung timidly to his neck,
"I know not, I hask not, if guilt's in that art,