CHAPTER XI.
MY FIRST LOVE.
I found my uncle sipping his coffee, as if nothing of importance had occurred during the night, to disturb his slumbers.

I took my seat at the table in silence.

My heart was full to bursting, and I dared not trust my voice, to offer him the common salutations of the morning.
My face, I have no doubt, betrayed the agitation which I endeavoured to conceal.
"You are late this morning, Geoffrey." "Yes, Sir--I passed a very restless night, and the result is a bad headache." "How did that happen ?" surveying me attentively, with his clear, glittering eyes.
"I was harassed by frightful dreams, and only awoke from one fit of nightmare to fall into a worse." "Are you often troubled with bad dreams ?" said he, without removing his powerful gaze from my pale face.
"Not often with such as disturbed me last night." I detected my uncle's drift in using this species of cross-questioning, and I determined to increase his uneasiness without betraying my own.
"I wish, uncle, I had never seen that old woman who visited the office yesterday; she haunted me all night like my evil genius.

Sir Matthew Hale might have condemned her for a witch, with a safe conscience." "She is not a very flattering specimen of the fair sex," said my uncle, affecting a laugh, "but ugly as she now is, I remember her both young and handsome.

What was the purport of your dream ?" "That I should like to know.