AN EXTRAORDINARY RENCONTRE.--PATHETIC REPARTEES.--NATURAL CONSEQUENCES RESULTING FROM AN EXCESS IN SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. --TERRIFIC NONSENSE TALKED BY TWO MANIACS. One night as Lord Theodore, on his return from the theatre, was passing along a dark alley, he perceived a candle lighting in a small window, on the ground-floor of a deciduous hovel. An indescribable sensation, an unaccountable something, whispered to him, in still, small accents, 'peep through the pane.' He did so; but what were his emotions, when he beheld--whom? Why the very young lady that he had left for dead in the forest--his Hysterica!!! She was clearstarching in a dimity bedgown. He sleeked his eyebrows with his finger, then flung open the sash, and stood before her. '_Ah, ma belle Amie!_' cried he. 'So I have caught you at last. I really thought you were dead.' 'I am dead to love and to hope!' said she. 'O ye powers!' cried he, making a blow at his forehead. 'There are many kinds of powers,' said she carelessly: 'perhaps you now mean the powers of impudence, Mr.--I beg pardon--Lord Theodore De Willoughby, I believe.' 'I believe so,' retorted he, 'Mrs.--or rather Lady Hys--Hys--Hys.'-- 'Hiss away, my lord!' exclaimed the sensitive girl, and fainted. Lord Theodore rushed at a bottle that stood on the dresser, and poured half a pint of it into her mouth; but perceiving by the colour that it was not water, he put it to his lips;--it was brandy. In a paroxysm of despair he swallowed the contents; and at the same moment Hysterica woke from her fainting-fit, in a high delirium. 'What have you done to me?' stammered she. 'Oh! I am lost.' 'What!' exclaimed the youth, who had also got a brain-fever; 'after my preserving you in brandy?' 'I am happy to hear it,' lisped she; 'and every thing round me seems to be happy, for every thing round me seems to be dancing!' Both now began singing, with dreadful facetiousness; he, 'fill the bowl,' and she, 'drink to me only.' At length they sang themselves asleep. CHAPTER VI Take him for all in all, We ne'er shall look upon his like again.--SHAKESPEARE. BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EDUCATION OF OUR HERO.--AN ASPIRING PORTER.--ECLAIRCISSEMENT. Lord Theodore De Willoughby was the son of Lord De Willoughby, of De Willoughby Castle. After having graduated at Oxford, he took, not alone a tour of the Orkney Islands, but an opportunity of saving our heroine's life. Hence their mutual attachment. About the same time, Count Stiletto had conceived a design against that poor orphan; and dreading Lord Theodore as a rival, waylaid and imprisoned him. But to return.