Not now the weakness of woman prevailed over her presence of mind, as we have lately seen it do in her interview with a beloved object. She commanded her agitation, so far as to bid for her father's old chair, but in vain; for her timid bidding, faltered from behind a crowd, failed to catch the ear of the jocular auctioneer, (who, in Wales, must always be somewhat of a mountebank,) and the favourite chair was gone at once, after the wheel, and the many old familiar chattels which she saw standing, now the property of strangers. Events crowded fast on each other, hurrying on that terrible hour in which a revolting act of self-devotion was to render even this domestic horror of little injury to her parents. "I will buy 'daddy' a better chair, or he shall have enough to buy a better, when I am gone," she murmured to herself. For now the rumour grew rife, that Mr Fitzarthur had actually landed, was daily expected; and, in confirmation, she received through a neighbour present, a letter left for her by her father, stating that he had now actually received, under the Nabob's own hand, a proposal of marriage, which the generous old man (who well knew her engagements to another) solemnly charged her to reject, at all hazards to himself. He further begged her to come quickly to the temporary place of refuge he and her mother had found under the roof of a hill cottage, just now tenantless through the death of a relative. Thither, with heavy heart, Winifred hastened by the first light of morning.