"Hold, sir!" said Boynton, interposing. "I thank you from my soul for your intentions, but I cannot consent to receive charity from mortal man." "I had no thought of charity, my excellent friend," said Rochester; "'tis only to exchange places with your creditor that I intend, and shall, at your earliest convenience, expect payment at your hands.--Think," he added in a lower tone, "of this fair girl, and leave not her youth and inexperience exposed to the temptations and corruptions by which she would be surrounded in your absence." This argument was too powerful to be resisted. The gallant old colonel shook his friend's offered hand, as he suffered him to pay the debt, and dismiss the myrmidons of the law. "I say it is no obligation," Rochester observed, in reply to the veteran's reiterated acknowledgments; "fortune has smiles in store for you yet, nor will they be withheld much longer. I must leave you now, though," he said, smiling at a passing idea, "for I have this night to superintend the planetary influences, in order to prevent the prognostications of the stars from failing." The colonel looked after him as he departed, but without comprehending a word of his astrological remarks. CHAPTER VI. In a house remote from the one in which King Charles experienced his last adventure with the pretended astrologer, he sat again, disguised in the undress uniform of a naval officer, with his arm encircling the neat waist of a remarkably pretty girl. She affected to allow this liberty reluctantly, yet there was that in her large black eyes and mischief-loving countenance which contradicted the attempted coyness she at first evinced. "So, they call thee Margaret?" said the king, as he leaned his face against her curls. "Yes, Master Stuart." "And thou art poor, Margaret?" "Alas! yes," she replied, "my father was once a royalist officer, and rich; but the civil wars and his sacrifices for his king left him penniless and friendless." "It has been the fate of many besides him," the monarch observed. "Those same wars were, at one time, the ruin of my own family. But thou, Margaret, shalt be poor no longer. Thou shalt leave this home of penury with me, and I will make thee rich." "Nay, sir," she said, as he attempted to kiss her, "be not so tender with your kindness. I fear already thy sympathy and its motive." "Fear nothing from me, pretty one," said Charles, clasping her closely to him. "Why are we here alone?" she asked, seeming to realize, and be startled at the idea, for the first time; "where is the friend who introduced you--where is Master Granby?" "He will be here anon, pretty Margaret," replied the king, "his own affairs have called him hence for a time. Heed him not, though, my sweet trembler, my Peri of perfection, my Houri of Paradise! thou art safe with me, and with me thou shalt hie away to regions where love will smile upon thee, and gold will pour in perpetual showers in thy lap."