“It was he!” added the same chorus of voices. Five or six of the speakers instantly stole slyly out of the throng, with the commendable intention of hurrying after the delinquent, in order to secure the payment of certain small balances of account, in which the unhappy and much traduced good-man stood indebted to the several parties. Had we leisure to record the manner in which these praiseworthy efforts, to save an honest penny, were conducted the reader might find much subject of amusement in the secret diligence with which each worthy tradesman endeavoured to outwit his neighbour, on the occasion, as well as in the cunning subterfuges which were adopted to veil their real designs, when all met at the ferry, deceived and disappointed in their object As Desire, however, had neither legal demand on, nor hope of favour from, her truant husband, she was content to pursue, on the spot, such further inquiries in behalf of the fugitive as she saw fit to make. It is possible the pleasures of freedom, in the shape of the contemplated divorce, were already floating before her active mind, with the soothing perspective of second nuptials, backed by the influence of such another picture as might be drawn from the recollections of her first love; the whole having a manifest tendency to pacify her awakened spirit, and to give a certain portion of directness and energy to her subsequent interrogatories. “Had he a thieving look?” she demanded, without attending to the manner in which she was so suddenly deserted by all those who had just expressed the strongest sympathy in her loss. “Was he a man that had the air of a sneaking runaway?” “As for his head-piece, I will not engage to give very true account,” returned the old mariner though he had the look of one who had been kept a good deal of his time, in the lee scuppers. If should give an opinion, the poor devil has had too much”— “Idle time, you would say; yes, yes; it has been his misfortune to be out of work a good deal latterly and wickedness has got into his head, for want of something better to think of. Too much”— “Wife,” interrupted the old man, emphatically. Another general, and far less equivocal laugh, at the expense of Desire, succeeded this blunt declaration Nothing intimidated by such a manifest assent to the opinion of the hardy seaman, the undaunted virago resumed,— “Ah! you little know the suffering and forbearance I have endured with the man in so many long years. Had the fellow you met the look of one who had left an injured woman behind him?”