WARNED FOR THE LAST TIME! My loyalty towards the afflicted man, whose friendly advances I had seen good reason to return, was in no sense shaken.

His undeserved misfortunes, his manly appeal to me at the spring, his hopeless attachment to the beautiful girl whose aversion towards him I had unhappily encouraged, all pleaded with me in his favour.

I had accepted his invitation; and I had no other engagement to claim me: it would have been an act of meanness amounting to a confession of fear, if I had sent an excuse.

Still, while Cristel's entreaties and Cristel's influence had failed to shake me, Gloody's strange language and Gloody's incomprehensible conduct had troubled my mind.

I felt vaguely uneasy; irritated by my own depression of spirits.