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"No, Madam!" answered Ellis, with returning recollection and courage; "no peril can be so tremendous as such a sacrifice!"
Mrs. Howel, rising, said, "Enough! abide by the consequence."
She was leaving the room; but Ellis, affrighted, exclaimed, "Ah, Madam, before you adopt any violent measures against me, deign to reflect that I may be innocent, and not merit them!"
"Innocent?" repeated Mrs. Howel, with an air of inexorable ire; "without a name, without a home, without a friend?—Innocent? presenting yourself under false appearances to one family, and under false pretences to another? No, I am not such a dupe. And if your bold resistance make it necessary, for the safety of my young friends, that I should lodge an information against you, you will find, that people who enter houses by names not their own, and who have no ostensible means of existence, will be considered only as swindlers; and
