Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/198

 not have resisted the appealing brightness of my eyes. They never were more cordial, more alluring, more perilous to the soul of man. Therefore, in one short hour the Captain was undone. His resolution was being gradually beaten, as I could plainly tell, and I felt grim satisfaction stiffen me, as I settled myself cosily within the warmth, and prepared a reception for my prey.

I have said that it was a loud night of winter, and the wind crying from the east; now screaming in the chimneys, now rattling the panels and the casements, now calling with its ghostly voices away there in the wood. It was a night for adventure, and Captain Grantley fortified himself with wine, because he was about to embark on one, and that the most perilous.

The Captain's fair companion was wonderfully kind. He noted it, and took it as a confirmation of his late opinions. Now and then she was something more than kind, and on the strength of that he toasted her, while she hinted that she was not displeased. Presently she drew her chair ten inches nearer to him, and soon tongues and hearts were most harmoniously flowing. Outside, the wind was ever rising, and sometimes it cast gusts of smoke down the wide chimney, and as it poured into the room the lady would shiver with sweet exaggeration and denounce the horrid north.

"Had she quite regretted her journey to the north?"

"Yes, but for one circumstance."