“You are better now, I think,” said he, gazing down upon me with his deep black eyes, and adding, with the same peculiar smile I had before observed, “Miss ——’s acting seldom receives so genuine a compliment as this. I imagine she ought to feel flattered.” At this moment a loud stamping and hallooing came to my ear, and, pulling Anna’s shawl, Herbert exclaimed, “Come, let’s go in again; they are calling back the dancing-girl, and I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Come, Rose, you want to see it all, and we’ll stand right by the door.” I felt perfectly well, and started to follow him, when something in the stranger’s face arrested me, for it seemed to say, “I wouldn’t go.” But he did not speak, and bowing to me very politely, he walked away, while I went after Herbert and Anna, reaching them just in time to witness a part of Mlle. Lisette’s dance, which seemed to me a good deal like the performance of the _Circus girl_, only “a little more so;” and I felt certain that Cousin Will, had he been there, would have pronounced her superior even to the boasted _Albany girl_! When at last it was over, and we were again leaving the room, Dr. Clayton, as if seeing me for the first time, offered me his hand, and in a low tone expressed to me his pleasure that I was to be in the city during the winter; adding, as he cast a furtive glance towards his wife, “You’ll come and see me often, won’t you; for I am very lonely?” For an instant I felt a thrill of pride, to know that there was yet aught in me which could interest _him_, but ’twas only for a moment, and then there came up before me thoughts of the stranger, and owing to some unknown influence, which I shall not attempt to explain, the doctor’s power over me was from that moment at an end; and though I still liked him, it was as I would like any friend who evinced a regard for me. Of the stranger I often thought, wondering who he was and whence he came; but no one knew, and all that I could learn was, that Herbert saw him the next morning standing on the steps of the Revere House, and chancing the same afternoon to be at the Worcester dépôt, he saw him enter the cars bound for Albany, and heard from one of the bystanders that he was a Georgian, and had probably come to Boston after “_a runaway nigger_!” Being a true born daughter of freedom-loving Massachusetts, this intelligence of course had the effect of cooling my ardor somewhat, and wishing in my heart that every one of his negroes would run away, I banished him for a time from my mind.