Scythrop snatched from its repository his ancestor’s skull, filled it with Madeira, and presenting himself before Mr. Glowry, threatened to drink off the contents, if he did not promise that Marionetta should not leave the abbey without her own consent.  Mr. Glowry, who took the Madeira to be some deadly brewage, gave his promise in dismal panic.  Scythrop returned to Marionetta with a joyful heart, and drank the Maderia by the way, leaving his father much disturbed, for he had set his heart on marrying his son to the daughter of his friend, Mr. Toobad.

III.—­Celinda

Mr. Toobad, too much accustomed to the intermeddling of the devil in all his affairs to be astonished at this new trace of his cloven claw, yet determined to outwit him, for he was sure there could be no comparison between his daughter and Marionetta in the mind of anyone who had a proper perception of the fact that seriousness and solemnity are the characteristics of wisdom.  Therefore he set off to meet her in London, that he might lose no time in bringing her to Nightmare Abbey.  After the first joy of meeting was over, he told his daughter he had a husband ready for her.  The young lady replied very gravely she should take the liberty of choosing for herself.

“Have I not a fortune in my own right, sir?” said Celinda.

“The more is the pity,” said Mr. Toobad.  “But I can find means, miss—­I can find means.”

They parted for the night with the expression of opposite resolutions, and in the morning the young lady’s chamber was empty, and what was become of her, Mr. Toobad had no clue to guess.  He declared that when he should discover the fugitive, she should find “that the devil was come unto her, having great wrath,” and continued to investigate town and country, visiting and revisiting Nightmare Abbey at intervals to consult Mr. Glowry.

Notwithstanding the difficulties that surrounded her, Marionetta could not debar herself from the pleasure of tormenting her lover, whom she kept in a continual fever, sometimes meeting him with unqualified affection, sometimes with chilling indifference, softening him to love by eloquent tenderness, or inflaming him to jealousy by coquetting with the Hon. Mr. Listless.  Scythrop’s schemes for regenerating the world and detecting his seven golden candlesticks went on very slowly.

On retiring to his tower one day Scythrop found it pre-occupied.  A stranger, muffled to the eyes in a cloak, rose at his entrance, and looked at him intently for a few minutes in silence, then saying, “I see by your physiognomy you are to be trusted,” dropped the cloak, and revealed to the astonished Scythrop a female form and countenance of dazzling grace and beauty, with long, flowing hair of raven blackness.

“You are a philosopher,” said the lady, “and a lover of liberty.  You are the author of a treatise called ‘Philosophical Gas?’”

“I am,” said Scythrop, delighted at this first blossom of his renown.