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As Mrs. Fairview looked at him, and saw the complete repose and satisfaction of his manner, she began to feel in utter despair. Already her teeth were beginning to chatter, and she was shivering as if attacked by a fit of ague. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes elapsed–but there sat the visiter, deeply absorbed in his book; and there stood the unfortunate lady who was “not at home,” so benumbed with cold as almost to have lost the sense of bodily feeling. A certain feeling in the throat warned her that she was taking cold, and would, in all probability, suffer from inflammation of the windpipe and chest. Five, ten, fifteen minutes more went by; but Mr. Beebe did not move from his place. He was far too comfortable to think of that.

At last after remaining in prison for nearly an hour, Mrs. Fairview, who by this time was beginning to suffer, besides excessive fatigue, from a sharp pain through her breast to her left shoulder blade, and who was painfully aware that she had taken a cold that would, in all probability, put her in bed for a week, determined to make her escape at all hazards. Mr. Beebe showed no disposition to go, and might remain for an hour longer. Throwing an apron over her head and face, she softly opened the door, and gliding past her visiter, escaped into the hall, and ran panting up stairs. Mr. Beebe raised his head at this unexpected invasion of the parlor, but on reflection concluded that the person who so suddenly appeared and disappeared was merely a servant in the family.

About an hour afterwards, finding that Mrs. Fairview did not return, Mr. Beebe left his card on the table, and departed in his usual comfortable state of mind.

Poor Mrs. Fairview paid dearly for her part in this transaction. A severe attack of inflammation of the lungs followed, which came near resulting in death. It was nearly three weeks before she was able to leave her room, and then her physician said she must not venture out before the mild weather of the opening spring.

A few days after the lady was able to go about the house again, Mr. Bebee called to congratulate her on her recovery. Two of her children were in the parlor; one eleven years old, and the other a child in her fourth year.

“O, you naughty man, you!” exclaimed the latter, the moment she saw Mr. Bebee. The oldest of the two children, who understood in a moment what her little sister meant, whispered: “H-u-s-h!–h-u-s-h! Mary!”

“What am I naughty about, my little sis?” said Mr. Bebee.

“O, because you are a naughty man! You made my mother sick, so you did! And mother says she never wants to look in your face again. You are a naughty man!”

“Mary! Mary! Hush! hush!” exclaimed the elder sister, trying to stop the child.

“Made your mother sick?” said Mr. Bebee. “How did I do that?”

“Why, you shut her up in that little room there, all in the cold, when you were here and staid so long, one day. And it made her sick–so it did.”

“Shut her up in that room! what does the child mean?” said Mr. Bebee, speaking to the elder sister.

“Mary! Mary! I’m ashamed of you. Come away!” was the only response made to this.

Mr. Bebee was puzzled. He asked himself as to the meaning of this strange language. All at once, he remembered that after he had been sitting in the parlor for an hour, on the occasion referred to, some one had come out of the little room referred to by the child, and swept past him almost as quick as a flash. But it had never once occurred to him that this was the lady he had called to visit, who, according to the servant, was not at home.

“I didn’t shut your mother up in that room, Mary,” said he, to the child.

“O, but you did. And she got cold, and almost died.”

At this the elder sister, finding that she could do nothing with little Mary, escaped from the parlor, and running up stairs, made a report to her mother of what was going on below.

“Mercy!” exclaimed the lady, in painful surprise.

“She told him that you said you never wanted to look upon his face again,” said the little girl.

“She did!”

“Yes. And she is telling him a great deal more. I tried my best to make her stop, but couldn’t.”

“Rachel! Go down and bring that child out of the parlor!” said Mrs. Fairview, to a servant. “It is too bad! I had no idea that the little witch knew anything about it. So much for talking before children!”

“And so much for not being at home when you are,” remarked a sister of Mrs. Fairview, who happened to be present.

“So much for having an acquaintance who makes himself at home in your house, whether you want him or not.”

“No doubt you are both sufficiently well punished.”

“I have been, I know.”

The heavy jar of the street door was heard at this moment.

“He’s gone, I do believe!”

And so it proved. What else little Mary said to him was never known, as the violent scolding she received when her mother got hold of her, sealed her lips on the subject, or drove all impressions relating thereto from her memory.

Mr. Bebee never called again.