Ellen slept. The clock struck ten. Father and mother entered their room, and through the door which Augusta had artfully requested Ellen to “leave open on account of the heat” came the sound of their voices in low but earnest converse—“You leave her to me, William,” spoken with decision, being the only words she could distinguish, though she heard her father walk about for some time. Indeed, she thought he would never go to bed. Eleven! She slipped stealthily from the side of her sleeping cousin, and by the light of the moon, clear enough to-night, dressed as noiselessly and rapidly as her trepidation would permit. From habit she knelt to pray, but as she came to the passage, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” a new meaning seemed to flash through the words, and she half wavered in her purpose. “Poor Jabez!” she murmured to herself, as she caught up her shoes and reticule, and listened in the open doorway for the deep breathing which came from behind the dimity curtains of the four-post bed. Re-assured, she stepped lightly across the room in her stocking-feet, turned the drop-handle of that chamber door as silently as the squeaking latch would permit and fled swiftly down the stairs, sitting down at the bottom to put on her shoes. She had raised the sash, and was in the very act of stepping over the low window-sill, when a foot was heard on the stair, and turning her head, she saw her mother fully dressed close by her side, and felt her slight wrist grasped as in a vice. “Is this your filial love and obedience, misguided girl? Is this the result of Madame Broadbent’s training? Have you no more sense of honour and decency than to elope at midnight with any man, least of all with the worthless reprobate who has caught your silly fancy? Could you not think that chastity is the brightest jewel in a woman’s crown, and the soonest dimmed, that you were ready to leave your character at the mercy of every gossip who had a tongue to wag?” She had drawn Augusta, too much stunned to speak, into the parlour close at hand, and had shut the doors—a needless precaution, seeing how remote were all sleepers. A few words of gentle motherly inquiry might have softened impulsive, tender-hearted Augusta to tears, and turned the whole current of her life; but Mrs. Ashton’s stateliness had become sternness, and, fresh from the evil teaching of Laurence Aspinall, her daughter’s proud spirit rose in rebellion, and answered her. “We are going to be married. And I was not going with Laurence alone. Cicily was to travel with us. Laurence himself proposed it.” “Infatuated girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton, “Cicily was in Mosley Street last night.” “And so were you, mother,” was the smart retort, “but the coach which dropped you here carried her to Buxton. Outside passengers were muffled up, but she waved her handkerchief as she passed, as a sign to me.”