Strong of nerve and will, Jabez thrust the impending throng aside, and grasped the horse’s reins to force it back, crying as he did so— “Shame, you coward! to attack a woman and a paralysed man!” “Come in here, quick, Mr. Chadwick!” cried Mr. Mabbott at that instant, opening his closed gate and drawing the feeble gentleman and his attendant within, as the sabre, raised either to terrify or strike the old man, came down on the outstretched arm of Jabez, gashing it frightfully. Another of the corps riding past, with his eyes full upon them, stopped his horse at the gallop as if to interpose, but he was too late. “My God! Aspinall, what have you done?” he exclaimed, and throwing his own reins over the palisades, he dismounted hastily, caught at Jabez, who had staggered back, and drew him too within the iron screen, and helped him also into the confectioner’s, as the other, with a derisive laugh which ill-became his handsome face, turned at a hand-gallop up Oldham Street, where he overtook a _confrere_, and with him sneered at “that soft-hearted Ben Travis.” Ellen and Augusta had not lost sight of Jabez many minutes when two of the Manchester Yeomanry, their dripping sabres flashing in the August sun, wheeled their panting chargers round, and rode (heedless of the shrinking wretches beneath their hoofs) across the footway, and made the brute beasts rear and plunge against the area-rails. “Shut your windows, or we’ll fire upon you!” they shouted. Nothing daunted, Ellen called back indignantly— “John Walmsley, I’m ashamed of you!” Not sober enough to distinguish friends from foes, again the pair launched their threat, “Shut the window, or we fire!” and Ellen, seeing pistols advanced, drew the window down, Mrs. Chadwick in much trepidation closing the other. “Who was that handsome officer with John?” asked Augusta, as they drew back, “he’s a perfect Adonis.” (Augusta dipped surreptitiously into Mrs. Edge’s novels at times, and a handsome man in uniform was, of course, a hero in her eyes). “Oh, Augusta, how can you talk of handsome officers at such a fearful time?” remonstrated Ellen. “I think them hideous, every one!” “But who is he? Do you know him?” she asked, even through the tears drawn by the scenes she beheld. “Oh, yes; know him? yes. He’s a friend of John Walmsley. He’s too wild to please either Charlotte or me!—Oh, mother! I do wish father had come home!” and Ellen turned a worried look towards Mrs. Chadwick, whose rigid face and clasped hands betrayed the anxiety which kept her silent. Augusta, though not naturally void of feeling, longed to know more of the handsome yeomanry officer who had so captivated her young fancy; but that was not the season for such inquiries, and she was conscious of it.