'We must part for ever!' exclaimed I. 'After that rash soliloquy which you have just heard, never can I bear you in my sight. Besides, Sir, you are betrothed, at this moment, to another.' 'I? Ridiculous! But to whom?' 'Our hostess--a most charming woman.' 'Our hostess! Yes, a charming woman indeed. She has roses in her cheek, and lilies in her skin; but they are white roses, and orange lilies. Our hostess! Beshrew my heart, I would let cobwebs grow on my lips before I would kiss her.' Another knock came to the door. 'Me miserable!' exclaimed I. 'If this be the person I suspect, we are both undone--separated for ever!' 'Who? what? where shall I hide?' cried his lordship. 'Yon dark closet,' said I, pointing. 'Fly.' His lordship sprang into the closet, and closed the door. 'I can hear no tidings of your father,' said Stuart, entering the room. 'I have searched every hotel in Town, and I really fear that some accident----' 'Mercy upon me! who's here?' cried his lordship from the closet. 'As I hope to be saved, the place is full of people. Let me go; whoever the devil you are, let me go!' 'Take that--and that--and that:--you poor, pitiful, fortune-hunting play-actor!' vociferated the landlady, buffetting him about. That unhappy young nobleman bolted from the closet, with his face running blood, and the landlady fast at his heels. 'Yes, you dog!' exclaimed she; 'I have discovered your treacherousness at last. As for your love-letters and trinkets, to me, villain--I never valued 'em a pin's point; but that you should go for to try to ruin this sweet innocent young creature, that is what distresses me, so it is.' And she burst out crying. 'Love-letters and trinkets to you!' exclaimed I. 'Surely he was not so base, Madam.' 'But he was so base, Madam,' said she with a bitter look; 'and if you fancy that 'tis yourself he loves, why look there; read the letter he sent me yesterday, just after I had asked him to pay me for six months' diet and lodging.' I read: 'Accept, my lovely hostess, the pair of bracelets which accompanies this note, and rest assured that I will discharge my bill, in the course of another month. 'My motive for having brought Miss Wilkinson into your house, as my cousin, was simply to restore her to her friends. Your jealousy, though most unfounded, is most flattering. 'Ah, how little do you know your Grundy!--If I pay the silly girl a few slight attentions, it is only to cloak that tenderness for you, which preys upon my heart, and consumes my vitals;--that tenderness, which I yesterday so solemnly vowed to evince (as soon as my affairs are arranged) at the altar. 'Your own, own, own, 'ABRAHAM GRUNDY.'