In this brief analysis of some of the workings of the heart, we may find a clue to the actual frame of mind in which John Wilmeter returned from Biberry, where he had now been, like a sentinel on post, for several weeks, in vigilant watchfulness over the interests of Mary Monson. During all that time, however, he had not once been admitted within the legal limits of the prison; holding his brief, but rather numerous conferences with his client, at the little grate in the massive door that separated the gaol from the dwelling of the sheriff. Kind-hearted Mrs. Gott would have admitted him to the gallery, whenever he chose to ask that favour; but this act of courtesy had been forbidden by Mary Monson herself. Timms she did receive, and she conferred with him in private on more than one occasion, manifesting great earnestness in the consultations that preceded the approaching trial. But John Wilmeter she would receive only at the grate, like a nun in a well-regulated convent. Even this coyness contributed to feed the fire that had been so suddenly lighted in the young man’s heart, on which the strangeness of the prisoner’s situation, her personal attractions, her manners, and all the other known peculiarities of person, history, education and deportment, had united to produce a most lively impression, however fleeting it was to prove in the end. Had there been any direct communications on the subject of the attachment that had so long, so slowly, but so surely been taking root in the hearts of John and Anna, any reciprocity in open confidence, this unlooked-for impulse in a new direction could not have overtaken the young man. He did not know how profound was the interest that Anna took in him; nor, for that matter, was she aware of it herself, until Michael Millington brought the unpleasant tidings of the manner in which his friend seemed to be entranced with his uncle’s client at Biberry. Then, indeed, Anna was made to feel that surest attendant of the liveliest love, a pang of jealousy; and, for the first time in her young and innocent life, she became aware of the real nature of her sentiments in behalf of John Wilmeter. On the other hand, drawn aside from the ordinary course of his affections by sudden, impulsive, and exciting novelties, John was fast submitting to the influence of the charms of the fair stranger, as has been more than once intimated in our opening pages, as the newly-fallen snow melts under the rays of a noon-day sun.