After having ministered to the immediate wants of Mr Pettigrew, and secured his effects, we returned to Southampton, leaving the deserted Agapedome in the charge of a couple of police. In spite of every entreaty Mr Pettigrew would not hear of entering a prosecution against Hyams. "I feel," said he, "that I have made a thorough ass of myself; and I should not be able to stand the ridicule that must follow a disclosure of the consequences. In fact, I begin to think that I am not fit to look after my own affairs. The man who has spent twelve days, as I have, under the clapper of a bell, without any other sustenance than broccoli--is there any more brandy in the flask? I should like the merest drop--the man, I say, who has undergone these trials, has ample time for meditation upon the past. I see my weakness, and I acknowledge it. So Jack, my dear boy, as you have always behaved to me more like a son than a nephew, I intend, immediately on my return to London, to settle my whole property upon you, merely reserving an annuity. Don't say a word on the subject. My mind is made up, and nothing can alter my resolution." On arriving at Southampton we considered it our duty to communicate immediately with Miss Latchley, for the purpose of ascertaining if we could render her any temporary assistance. Perhaps it was more than she deserved; but we could not forget her sex, though she had done everything in her power to disguise it; and, besides, the lucky blow with the life-preserver, which she administered to Hyams, was a service for which we could not be otherwise than grateful. Jack Wilkinson was selected as the medium of communication. He found the strong Lavinia alone, and perfectly composed. "I wish never more," said she, "to hear the name of Pettigrew. It is associated in my mind with weakness, fanaticism, and vacillation; and I shall ever feel humbled at the reflection that I bowed my woman's pride to gaze on the surface of so shallow and opaque a pool! And yet, why regret? The image of the sun is reflected equally from the Bœotian marsh and the mirror of the clear Ontario! Tell your uncle," continued she, after a pause, "that as he is nothing to me, so I wish to be nothing to him. Let us mutually extinguish memory. Ha, ha, ha!--so they fed him, you say, upon broccoli? "But I have one message to give, though not to him. The youth who, in the nobility of his soul, declared his passion for my intellect--where is he? I tarry beneath this roof but for him. Do my message fairly, and say to him that if he seeks a communion of soul--no! that is the common phrase of the slaves of antiquated superstition--if he yearns for a grand amalgamation of essential passion and power, let him hasten hither, and Lavinia Latchley is ready to accompany him to the prairie or the forest, to the torrid zone, or to the confines of the arctic seas!" "I shall deliver your message, ma'am," said Jack, "as accurately as my abilities will allow." And he did so.