 shudder quite convulsed her frame - »for any earthly crowns as might be
offered. Worlds,« Miggs added solemnly, »should not reduce me. No. Not if I was
Wenis.«
    »Well, but you are Wenus you know,« said Mr. Dennis, confidentially.
    »No, I am not, good gentleman,« answered Miggs, shaking her head with an air
of self-denial which seemed to imply that she might be if she chose, but she
hoped she knew better. »No, I am not, good gentleman. Don't charge me with it.«
    Up to this time she had turned round, every now and then, to where Dolly and
Miss Haredale had retired, and uttered a scream, or groan, or laid her hand upon
her heart and trembled excessively, with a view of keeping up appearances, and
giving them to understand that she conversed with the visitor, under protest and
on compulsion, and at a great personal sacrifice, for their common good. But at
this point, Mr. Dennis looked so very full of meaning, and gave such a
singularly expressive twitch to his face as a request to her to come still
nearer to him, that she abandoned these little arts, and gave him her whole and
undivided attention.
    »When was Simmuns here, I say?« quoth Dennis, in her ear.
    »Not since yesterday morning; and then only for a few minutes. Not all day,
the day before.«
    »You know he meant all along to carry off that one!« said Dennis, indicating
Dolly by the slightest possible jerk of his head: - »and to hand you over to
somebody else.«
    Miss Miggs, who had fallen into a terrible state of grief when the first
part of this sentence was spoken, recovered a little at the second, and seemed
by the sudden check she put upon her tears, to intimate that possibly this
arrangement might meet her views; and that it might, perhaps, remain an open
question.
    »- But unfort'nately,« pursued Dennis, who observed this: »somebody else was
fond of her too, you see; and even if he wasn't, somebody else is took for a
rioter, and it's all over with him.«
    Miss Miggs relapsed.
    »Now I want,« said Dennis, »to clear this house, and to see you righted.
What if I was to get her off, out of the way, eh?«
    Miss Miggs, brightening again, rejoined, with many
