The old crone gave him one angry glance, which sank frightened beneath the cruel gleam of his eyes, and hastening up the stairs with a quicker stride than her age seemed to warrant, cried out, "Mistress, mistress! here is Mr. Losely! Jasper Losely himself!" By the time the visitor had reached the landing-place of the first floor, a female form had emerged from a room above, a female face peered over the banisters. Losely looked up and started as he saw it. A haggard face,--the face of one over whose life there has passed a blight. When last seen by him it had possessed beauty, though of a masculine rather than womanly character. Now of that beauty not a trace! the cheeks shrunk and hollow left the nose sharp, long, beaked as a bird of prey. The hair, once glossy in its ebon hue, now grizzled, harsh, neglected, hung in tortured, tangled meshes,--a study for an artist who would paint a fury. But the eyes were bright,--brighter than ever; bright now with a glare that lighted up the whole face bending over the man. In those burning eyes was there love? was there hate? was there welcome? was there menace? Impossible to distinguish; but at least one might perceive that there was joy. "So," said the voice from above, "so we do meet at last, Jasper Losely! you are come!" Drawing a loose kind of dressing-robe more closely round her, the mistress of the house now descended the stairs, rapidly, flittingly, with a step noiseless as a spectre's, and, grasping Losely firmly by the hand, led him into a chill, dank, sunless drawing-room, gazing into his face fixedly all the while. He winced and writhed. "There, there, let us sit down, my dear Mrs. Crane." "And once I was called Bella." "Ages ago! Basta! All things have their end. Do take those eyes of yours off my face; they were always so bright! and--really--now they are perfect burning-glasses! How close it is! Peuh! I am dead tired. May I ask for a glass of water; a drop of wine in it--or--brandy will do as well." "Ho! you have come to brandy and morning drams, eh, Jasper?" said Mrs. Crane, with a strange, dreary accent. "I, too, once tried if fire could burn up thought, but it did not succeed with me; that is years ago; and- there--see the bottles are full still!" While thus speaking, she had unlocked a chiffonniere of the shape usually found in "genteel lodgings," and taken out a leathern spirit-case containing four bottles, with a couple of wine-glasses. This case she placed on the table before Mr., Losely, and contemplated him at leisure while he helped himself to the raw spirits.