‘Blodget!’ she exclaimed, in a low gasping tone. ‘Ah! why it is little Fanny!’ said he, in a tone between a recognition and surprise. ‘Yes,’ returned the young girl, with a look at once appealing and reproachful, ‘It is Fanny—your victim.’ ‘Humph,’ said Blodget, averting his countenance from the girl’s earnest gaze, and biting his lip. ‘Have you been looking for me?’ he inquired, after a moment’s pause, and still without looking upon the girl’s wan countenance, as if he felt that her looks would reproach him, even though she uttered not a word. ‘No,’ returned Fanny. ‘I knew not that you were in this city. I am glad, Mr. Blodget, to perceive that you have still so much virtue left, that you cannot look upon the face of the girl you have wronged and deceived, that you shrink from the contemplation of your work of evil.’ ‘Don’t let us quarrel,’ said Blodget, in a low voice, and with an evident uneasiness of manner. ‘Come in, and we will go up stairs, and have a bottle of wine.’ ‘Never, with you, Blodget!’ exclaimed Fanny, energetically. ‘Your baseness has reduced me to a depth of degradation to which I would not at one time have believed possible for me to fall, but never will I sit down in a public room with the author of my ruin.’ ‘Well, where do you live?’ said Blodget in a tone of vexation. ‘I cannot stand talking to you in the street—besides, it rains.’ ‘Ah, you are ashamed of me?’ returned Fanny in a tone of bitterness, though her voice trembled and her lips quivered as she spoke. ‘Why were you not rather ashamed to become the destroyer of my happiness, my innocence, perhaps, my soul?’ ‘Pooh, nonsense, Fan,’ returned Blodget, the glow of conscious guilt mantling upon his cheeks, in spite of his assumed nonchalance. ‘You are in a melancholy mood to-night, and if you mean to stand here talking like that, I shall rush off. It is getting late, and you had better go home.’ ‘Home!’ ejaculated Fanny, with a bitter intonation, and hot tears gathered in her dark eyes, and trembled on her black and silken lashes. ‘Bill!’ said Blodget, to a pale, shabby dissipated-looking young man, who came out of the bar-room at that moment—‘bring a hack!’ In a few minutes the vehicle rolled up to the spot, and the driver jumped from his seat to open the door. Fanny allowed her seducer to hand her into the hack but her thoughts were wandering, and she felt a slight degree of surprise when Blodget got in, and seated himself by her side. ‘Where to, sir,’ said the driver, as he closed the door. Blodget looked at Fanny, who mentioned the name of the street in which she lived, and in a few minutes the hack was dashing over the miry road. Fanny leaned back in silence, and when her companion passed his arm around her waist, she shrank from his touch, and he instantly removed it. ‘What is the use of your being angry with me, Fanny?’ said he, in a deprecating tone. ‘What has passed can never be recalled, and had better be forgotten. Let us—’