Here Mahone seized the hand which was lifted to the cap-string again, and repeated the naughty word oh, oh, oh, half a dozen times between the kisses he lavished upon it; but, strange to say, the obnoxious syllable seemed rather pleasant to her than otherwise this time. Circumstances alter cases, you know. “To think that I shall have a creature like this, and five thousand dollars, all in a breath. I cannot believe it. If a fortune-teller had foretold it, I should have set her down as a rank impostor, and refused to pay her fee. But now, tell me, my Ellen, _is_ it real? Not the money. I don’t care the snap of my finger for that! But is it possible that you love me?” “Love you, Robert? Mr. Mahone, I mean!” “Oh, call me Robert; do call me Robert!” “Well, I will! You asked if I loved you? I who never lifted admiring eyes to another man; had you no eyes to read mine, no heart to hear how mine was beating like a—a trip-hammer against my side? Did you never suspect?” “I never dared to hope; but now—now I am the happiest man alive! You will not talk of other people after this.” There was a tone of anxiety in this last question quite as sincere as the protestations he had made; but Ellen did not observe it. “I shall talk nor think of no one but you, Robert.” Some one knocked at the parlor-door, rather sturdily, and broke up this pleasant scene, which might have lasted for hours, but for that. Mahone started up, and opened the door, where he found Boyce flushed with impatience. “I thought you was never coming out,” he said, rudely enough. “I have got business to attend to, and can’t sit waiting here. If you’ve got any more to say, say it now.” “I’ll walk with you, Boyce,” answered Robert, “if Miss Post will excuse me.” Miss Post bowed with condescension, and the two young men went into the street together. That night a woman who lived in a tall tenement house not very far from Smith’s grocery, was surprised by the entrance of two men, with whom she was doubtless on terms of great domestic intimacy, for she came out of her bedroom half dressed, and a little cross, for she had been working hard all day, and dropped to sleep while hushing the child upon the bed she had found no time to make. Something that the men proposed made her angry, for she protested, and had fierce words with the tallest of her visitors, who rudely ordered her to be silent, and go back to her child. With some grumbling she obeyed him. After that, these men came up and down the numerous flights of stairs, again and again, carrying burdens on their shoulders. Then a wagon drove off, and, for an hour or two, the same men were moving like shadows around the house where the Laurence family lay sleeping. CHAPTER LI. A BOY IN PRISON.