A SPOKE IN THE WHEEL. 69

white muslin cuffs into the slate-coloured stuff gown
which was evidently to be the dress of the Fair
Quaker of Deal, knocked down an old pasteboard
box which held her store of sewing materials. Jessie,
who stood en déshabillé, as yesterday, with her little
Quaker’s cap in her hand, turned first red and then
pale at the sight of him; and a tall young man, of
perhaps two-and-twenty, who was at that moment
presenting her with a bouquet of splendid green-
house’ flowers, started back a step or two, as if a
snake had stung him, and then stood, with the flowers
in his hand, and a look of defiance in his eye, at the
unexpected rival, whom the lady might be supposed
to favour from her changing colour. A glance told
all this ; and Williams, on his part, looked as much
taken by surprise as any of them. Here had he
flown on the wings of love and impatience only to
find a rival—a favoured rival his jealousy whispered,
and that in the handsome person of Tom Bassett, a
young man of family—an articled clerk of the first
lawyer in the place ;—he was in love with her foo—
it was death and destruction !

“Shall you see me to-night as the Fair Quaker ?”
asked Jessie, with one of her sweetest smiles.

‘“‘ Most certainly I shall,” said Williams, who, in
the face of his rival, felt that it must be so.

She showed him the cap, and pointed to the dress
which the old woman was engaged upon for the
character ; and while he turned to speak to the old
woman, who seemed now deafer than ever, Tom
Bassett again presented his flowers, which were
graciously accepted. Williams did not wait for the
old woman’s answer, but was, the same moment,
at Jessie’s side again, looking daggers at the free-and-