“There!  I won’t be a witch; I won’t be a witch:  they may burn me to a cinder, but I won’t be a witch!”

She sang, throwing her hair about, and stamping her feet.

“I suppose I look a figure.  I must go and tidy myself.”

“No, don’t change.  I like to see you so.”  He gazed at her with a mixture of wonder and admiration.  “I can’t think you the same person—­ not even when you laugh.”

“Richard,” her tone was serious, “you were going to speak to me of my parents.”

“How wild and awful you looked, Bella!”

“My father, Richard, was a very respectable man.”

“Bella, you’ll haunt me like a ghost.”

“My mother died in my infancy, Richard.”

“Don’t put up your hair, Bella.”

“I was an only child!”

Her head shook sorrowfully at the glistening fire-irons.  He followed the abstracted intentness of her look, and came upon her words.

“Ah, yes! speak of your father, Bella.  Speak of him.”

“Shall I haunt you, and come to your bedside, and cry, ’`Tis time’?”

“Dear Bella! if you will tell me where he lives, I will go to him.  He shall receive you.  He shall not refuse—­he shall forgive you.”

“If I haunt you, you can’t forget me, Richard.”

“Let me go to your father, Bella let me go to him to-morrow.  I’ll give you my time.  It’s all I can give.  O Bella! let me save you.”

“So you like me best dishevelled, do you, you naughty boy!  Ha! ha!” and away she burst from him, and up flew her hair, as she danced across the room, and fell at full length on the sofa.

He felt giddy:  bewitched.

“We’ll talk of everyday things, Dick,” she called to him from the sofa.  “It’s our last evening.  Our last?  Heigho!  It makes me sentimental.  How’s that Mr. Ripson, Pipson, Nipson?—­it’s not complimentary, but I can’t remember names of that sort.  Why do you have friends of that sort?  He’s not a gentleman.  Better is he?  Well, he’s rather too insignificant for me.  Why do you sit off there?  Come to me instantly.  There—­I’ll sit up, and be proper, and you’ll have plenty of room.  Talk, Dick!”

He was reflecting on the fact that her eyes were brown.  They had a haughty sparkle when she pleased, and when she pleased a soft languor circled them.  Excitement had dyed her cheeks deep red.  He was a youth, and she an enchantress.  He a hero; she a female will-o’-the-wisp.

The eyes were languid now, set in rosy colour.

“You will not leave me yet, Richard? not yet?”

He had no thought of departing: 

“It’s our last night—­I suppose it’s our last hour together in this world—­and I don’t want to meet you in the next, for poor Dick will have to come to such a very, very disagreeable place to make the visit.”

He grasped her hand at this.

“Yes, he will! too true! can’t be helped:  they say I’m handsome.”