“Yes,” she answered; and he added that they would be there within five minutes, and drove on. Within the time he specified they stopped before an elegant house in a square, the silence of which was only broken by the rattling of a few fashionable carriages. The coachman alighted, and a liveried servant stood ready to receive her. She inquired if the house to which she had been conducted was Mr Fulton’s of Cornhill, and the servant answered that it was. She, however, had been within it but a few minutes, when she became conscious that she was under the roof and in the power of the Honourable Edward Stafford. Despair gave her strength; she raised her eyes to Heaven, and in the emphatic words of Judith, prayed—“Strengthen my hand!” Grasping a fruit-knife, which lay near her, in her hand, she made a desperate effort to escape; and, although the servants aided their master in opposing her, yet, as my readers have already had a specimen of his courage, and as the heroism of his domestics was not of that description, which “smiles at the drawn dagger and defies its point,” they will not be surprised to learn that through half-a-dozen such assailants one weak woman, rendered desperate, forced her escape. Having reached Cornhill, she was from thence conducted, by one of Mr Fulton’s clerks, to Red Lion Square, where her husband then lodged. Their meeting was one of sorrow and of joy; but I need not describe it. Alexander perceived that she was agitated, and he entreated to know the cause. She, fearful of the consequences that might arise from divulging it, would have concealed it; but it is difficult for an affectionate wife to conceal from her husband aught that concerns him; and within half an hour he knew all that had passed during her passage to London and since she arrived. He would have rushed forth on the instant to seek revenge, but she clung around his neck, she entreated him not to leave her, and he consented to defer the punishment of Stafford to a more favourable moment. From week to week, Alexander’s expected appointment under government was delayed; and, although they had parted with almost every article of any value which they had brought with them, they began to be in want. Yet Isabella murmured not, but sought to sooth her husband and raise his drooping spirits. At length, the long wished-for day on which he was to be installed into office arrived, and ten o’clock was the hour fixed by his patron for meeting him. Everything around him wore a face of joy. He now knew that wealth was unnecessary to secure happiness with one who had taught him that contentment is true riches. He longed for the appointed hour. There was a tear in Isabella’s eye, but it was a tear of gratitude and happiness. “Bless thee—my own!” she said, as he rose to depart; and in silence he kissed her cheek.