She did not answer, and he exclaimed, triumphantly, "Men,--men write 'em, men do 'em, and worse things,--things so hair-lifting that they dassent publish 'em. If I could reveal to you the secrets of this here breast," and he struck himself a smart blow on the chest, and looked fearfully over his shoulder, "you could keep me from ever raising a monument to myself, for they'd have me shut up in a place where they'd never let me out to choose one." "Micah," she said, with a shriek, "get out! I'm afraid of you," and she retreated precipitately from him toward the table, where she dropped into a chair. A sudden change came over her companion. He struck an attitude of exaggerated admiration, and exclaimed, "Hippolyta, you might go on the stage,--I never saw such acting." In fascinated confusion she stared speechlessly at him. "You're an astonishing woman," he cried, skipping to the hearth-rug, and extending both hands toward her. "I never saw such nerve, such coolness." She looked in her lap for her knitting, and seeing it was not there picked rashly at her apron. "For," he went on, with a final flourish, "bad as I am, black as are my vices, they are a pale cream-colour beside yours, for there is one crime I have not dared to commit, and it lies light as a feather on your soul. "Why don't you ask what crime it is?" he inquired, after a short period of silence. She replied convulsively that she didn't want to know. "But you've got to know. It's for the good of your soul. Hold up your head now, and I'll whisper it in your ear. It isn't a word for housetop use," and, creeping close to her, he uttered a ghostly "Murder!" She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came from it, and in terrified, fascinated speechlessness she began slowly backing away from him, propelling her chair on its hind legs around the table and followed by him airily perched on another. Micah had gone crazy. There was no doubt about it. He had no thought of marriage. Her best plan was to escape from the room without irritating him. Now he was silly, and, with his head on one side, was speaking in a foolish voice, "Cousin Hippolyta, who sits behind the parlour window curtains, pretending to knit, and casting sly looks at the old widowers and bachelors as they go by?" These were pretty sane words for an insane man, for they described her favourite occupation, and she blushed slightly as she looked away from him. "Who counts 'em up head by head," he went on, remorselessly, "and reckons up chances of marriage. Who makes eyes at the old men, Hippolyta?" "Hold your tongue, Micah," she said, hysterically. "Who goes further than that?" he inquired, in a voice so low that it dropped into an accusing growl. "Who has a prime favourite among the old men? Who forgets what the good Book says about, 'She that looketh on a man and planneth on his sick wife's death is a murderess in her heart.'"