"I do!" she answered, "I can swear that Susan Hartshorne wore a dress like that the last time I saw her alive." "It is well! We have now some proof, but we must discover what has been done with the body. Mademoiselle will now accompany me to the bureau of the Juge de Paix," he added, after a reflective pause, filled up with more notation and twirling of the somewhat stiff ends of the "hirsute appendage on his upper lip." The Chef leading this time and Miss Kingscott following behind, the two were soon walking rapidly together towards the imposing residence of the official alluded to. Volume 3, Chapter IV. POOR ANDROMEDA! While events were thus hastening on abroad, all was quiet at home, both at The Poplars and the parsonage. Fancy Andromeda's lamentations when Perseus left her! and in her place picture Lizzie, since Tom had gone. It was now autumn, or rather winter, for the month of November was well in hand, and Christmas was "coming," as the adage says.--Some people's Christmases seem always coming. It was now autumn. The trees were leafless, with their skeleton boughs stretched out like spectral hands clutching towards the sky, and sighing with every breath of the dull wintry wind that swept across their moaning branches for the approach of spring. What a change the past three weeks had made in Lizzie Pringle's life! It is one of the anomalies of our nature, ever changeful and varying, that the world--our world--is made up of change, even in the most monotonous of lives. The machinery of existence is wonderfully intricate, and of such delicate construction, that the slightest hitch or strain can throw it entirely out of gear. We move on calmly, perhaps, in a smooth groove, from life to death, from the cradle towards the grave, when of a sudden a pebble gets into the works, a new element is introduced into, or an old one subtracted from, the course of our existence, and all is changed. No more do the wheels move steadily round and the cranks slide up and down as of yore; a hitch has occurred; and although the machine goes on still, apparently with the same rumble and clang, the motion is not what it was; it is parallel, perhaps, or elliptical, but is not the same as it was before. Nothing can ever restore it again. Our lives are altered against our wills, and though the cradle stands in the background and the grave looms in front, the change of the enchanter's hand--it may be of pleasure and joy, or more likely one of grief and pain--has passed over our lives, and we ourselves are altered too, for better or worse--God grant the former!