“She came down this block and darted into a door somewhere close by this very place, I’ll be sworn to that,” muttered the spinstress. “Savage kept by her side almost to the corner. They must have walked together a full hour, and he with his head bent half the time—the artful creature. I wonder if he knows that she left him to meet this handsome young gambler in that place? Oh! it’s all true! That boy in the door is her brother, one of the barefooted creatures who stood in the picture of ‘a soldier’s home.’ There is no mistake about the thing now. Jacob! I say, Jacob! You may drive home!” Jacob muttered heavily under his breath, and, seeing a long space of broken pavement, avenged his outraged dignity by driving through it so roughly that the carriage rocked and toiled in the ruts like some ship in a storm. Liking the faint screams that came from within the carriage, Jacob resolved to give his lady the full benefit of the neighborhood she had forced him into; so he lost his way, and drove around in a circle, where the squalid children were thickest along the side-walks, and women with naked arms, sometimes dripping with soapsuds, thrust their heads from the windows, wondering at the splendor of her equipage. But Jacob revolted himself at this amusement, after a little, and drove back to a level with aristocracy again, after which he condescended to take a tolerably straight line for home. Miss Eliza went into her step-brother’s house in a state of sublime exaltation. Two distinct tints of red flushed her cheeks; her pale blue eyes darkened and gleamed. Up the steps she ran, and into the house, eager to unbosom herself of the secret that possessed her. Some feline instinct carried her directly to the little room in which Georgiana Halstead spent her leisure hours, and where she then was somewhat lonely and dispirited. Georgie had kept much by herself during the last few days, for a gentle sadness had fallen upon her, such as loving hearts know when locked up with anxious suspense.