I will pursue this no further. I have some work to do in the metropolis. If I linger at Burnsville, I shall be quite unfitted for it--I shall, indeed. * * * * * Joel--Joel Burns--farewell! Ellen Bellows--Ellen Burns--don't you see that Joel has remembered your dying injunction, and has tried to 'live right?' Yes, you do. It was for this that you have never forsaken him. * * * * * Sarah Egerton smiles on me as I pass out of the gate. A group of children, half grown, and full grown, give me joyous greeting; and the Doctor waves his hand from his carriage, as he drives along on his errands of mercy and benevolence. * * * * * I must make haste. There is no stage to wait five minutes for me. The time table is a despot. The train approaches. It has stopped. It is off again, and I am in it. Burnsville, pleasant Burnsville, adieu! CHAPTER IX. The _denouement_ happened in this way: There was to be a large party at Mrs. Caruther's, a married daughter of Mrs. Bennett. The Bennetts and the Meekers, by the way, always kept up their intimacy. Mr. Bennett is dead. He died the year he was seventy, leaving a large fortune. The widow lives in the old house, and the children are married, and are bringing out _their_ children now. I say, Mrs. Caruthers was to give a large party. Mrs. Meeker, who invariably attended her daughter, could not go. Belle must not go alone. She arranged, so she said, to drive early in the evening to Mrs. Caruther's, and to stay there all night. For two or three weeks previous, Belle, under the inspiration of Signor Barbone, who now exercised a complete control over her, had been making, quietly but very efficiently, her arrangements for quitting her father's roof. By degrees, and with an amazing display of secretiveness, she managed to convey out of the house all that she might require for a considerable absence. Her jewels were not lost sight of, nor anything else of value. The Signor had provided proper receptacles for all these articles--indeed, had greatly aided the young lady in the selection of what to take. More than this--Signor Barbone (_proh pudor!_) had suggested that she should fortify herself with such sums of money as she might be able to get together without exciting suspicion. Strange as you may think, Belle was possessed of so little delicacy, that she actually entered into the spirit of the enterprise--regarding the affair as a capital joke, enabling her to hold out against papa should he prove obstinate, as he might for a few days (it could only be for a few days), and inclined to be severe.