By Frederick Greenwood 15

broad old-fashioned hob of the grate to keep hot (as I surmised)
while she spoke with and got rid of me, when lcnocking was heard
at the outer door, a pair or hasty feet came bounding up the
stair, careless of noise, and in flashed a splendid radiant creature
of a man in a thin summer coat, and literally drenched to the skin.

It was Monsieur Vernet, whose real name ended in " ieff."
By daring ingenuity, by a long chain of connivance yet more
hazardous, by courage, effrontery, and one or two miraculous
strokes of good fortune, he had escaped from the fortress to which
he had been conveyed in secret and without the least spark of
hope that he would ever be released. For many months no one
but himself and his jailers knew whether he was alive or dead: his
friends inclined to think him the one thingor the other according
to the brightness or the gloominess or the hour. Smuggled into
Germany, and running thence into Belgium, he had landed in
England the night before ; and Walking the whole distance to
London, with an interval of rour hours' sleep in a cartshed, he
contrived to bring home nearly all of the four Shillings with
which he started.

But these particulars, it will be understood, I did not learn
tili afterwards. For that evening my visit was at an end from
the moment (the first of his appearance) when Vernet seized his
wife in his arms with a partial resemblance to murder. Un-
observed, I placed my small packet on the table behind the lamp,
and then slipped out; but not without a last view of that affecting
" domestic interior," which showed me those two people in a
relaxed embrace while they made me a courteous salute in response
to another which was all awkwardness, their little daughter Stand-
ing up on the bed in her night-gown, patiently yet eagerly
waiting to be noticed by her father. In all likelihood she had not
to wait long.

This