it into his head that the season was a season of famine, and on this calamitous dispensation of Providence he kept harping from morning to night.  The idea of the dinner, however, was hailed by them all as a very agreeable project, for which the squire, who only thought of the opportunity it would give himself to enjoy a surfeit, was highly complimented.  It was to be in the shape of a modern table d’hote:  every gentleman was to pay for himself and such of his party as accompanied him to it.  Even the Pythagorean relished the proposal, for although peculiar in his opinions, he was sufficiently liberal, and too much of a gentleman, to quarrel with those who differed from him.  Mr. Goodwin, too, was a consenting party, and mentioned the subject to Alice in a cheerful spirit, and with a hope that she might be able to rally and attend it.  She promised to do so if she could; but said it chiefly depended on the state of health in which she might find herself.  Indeed, if ever a beautiful and interesting girl was to be pitied, she, most unquestionably, was an object of the deepest compassion.

It was not merely what she had to suffer from the Evil Eye of the demon Woodward, but from the fact which had reached her ears of what she considered the profligate conduct of his brother Charles, once her betrothed lover.  This latter reflection, associated with the probability of his death, when joined to the terrible malady which Woodward had inflicted on her, may enable our readers to perceive what the poor girl had to suffer.  Still she told her father that she would be present if her health permitted her, “especially,” she added, “as there was no possibility of Woodward being among the guests.”

“Why, my dear child,” said her father, “what could put such an absurd apprehension into your head?”

“Because, papa, I don’t think he will ever let me out of his power until he kills me.  I don’t think he will come here; but I dread to return home, because I fear that if I do he will obtrude himself on me; and I feel that another gaze of his eye would occasion my death.”

“I would call him out,” replied the father, “and shoot him like a dog, to which honest and faithful animal it is a sin to compare the villain.”

“And then I might be left fatherless!” she exclaimed.  “O, papa, promise me that you never will have recourse to that dreadful alternative.”

“But my darling, I only said so upon the supposition of your death by him.”

“But mamma!”

“Come, come, Alice, get up your spirits, and be able to attend this dinner.  It will cheer you and do you good.  We have been discussing soap bubbles.  Give up thinking of the scoundrel, and you will soon feel yourself well enough.  In about another month we will start for Killarney, and see the lakes and the magnificent scenery by which they are surrounded.”

“Well, dear papa, I shall go to this dinner if I am at all able; but indeed I do not expect to be able.”