“Let us be gone from this place,” she said; “all the roses in the world are not worth the shock my nerves have received from the shriek of that madman yonder. Let the girl keep her flowers, if she prizes them above bread, and reap the fruits of her folly, as she will doubtless do soon. Come, Grayson—I am in haste; for I cannot breathe in this horrid attic another moment;” and sweeping past the bed without turning a glance of pity or inquiry toward the apparently dying man, over whom the poor daughter was bending in love and terror, she disappeared through the door, followed by her reluctant waiting-woman. Grayson, however—as determined a she-wolf as ever thirsted for the blood of an innocent lamb—had by no means relinquished her purpose. She was to receive a rich bribe from Alicia if she succeeded in it, and she was resolved not to give it up. Ferris was too conscientious and too tender-hearted to do any thing further in the matter, and she would have lost her place for declining, had not her services been too valuable to her selfish young mistress to be lightly dispensed with. But Grayson was troubled with no such scruples of conscience, and the moment she saw her mistress seated in her carriage, which waited at the end of the little street, and had received her dismission, she returned to a small Canadian house which stood just opposite the one she had recently quitted, the occupants of which, an old man and woman, were known to her. Under the pretence of paying them a friendly visit, she sat down at the window to watch for Rosalie, who, she remembered to have said, that at three o’clock she was to take home the wax flowers she had made. She waited patiently till the hour arrived—but then, when minute after minute passed on, till a quarter sounded from the old clock of the French Seminary, she began to fear that the sick man was either dead, or so much worse as to prevent his daughter from leaving him. However, just as she was hesitating what course to pursue, the door of the opposite house was opened, and Rosalie appeared, with the gray capote of her little Canadian cloak drawn closely over her head—for it was snowing fast—and carrying a small basket in her hand. She tripped quickly down the narrow street, and when Grayson saw her turn the corner, she rose and said she must be going, but that she would first just step over the way and see how the sick man was, to whom her mistress sometimes sent jelly. The old woman nodded her approbation of the neighborly act, and Grayson departed on her wicked errand. She found the street-door opposite open, and softly ascending the stairs, she reached the attic without encountering any one.