now, of the sergeant, Sergeant Hastings? suppose it happened to be him, now?"
"Don't talk to me of Sergeant Hastings mother; for I was a fool to mind him. He don't care that for me, I know: and he talks cross to me; and if I don't run myself out of breath to serve him, he says ugly things. Besides, he's been talking strange things to me, and I don't like it. More than once I've been going to tell brother William something that he once said to me: and I know, if I had, there would have been a brush between them; for William won't stand any thing that's impudent. Don't talk of him to me."
"But I must, my daughter, for it cannot be helped. If I see that he's born to be your husband, and you his wife, it must be so, and I must say it."
"No—no—it's not so, mother, I know. It shan't be so," said the girl, firmly enough. "I won't believe it, neither, and you're only plaguing me."
"It's a truth, Bella, and neither you nor I can help it, or keep it off. I tell you, child, that you were born for Sergeant Hastings."
"But I won't be born for him, neither. I can't, and I won't, for you don't know what he said to me, and it's not good for me to tell it again, for it was naughty; and I'm sorry I ever talked cross to poor John Davis, and I did so all because of him."
The change in her regards from Hastings to her old lover, was a source of no small astonishment to the old hag, who knew not how to account for it. It gave less satisfaction to her than to Humphries, who, in the neighbouring bush, heard every syllable which had been uttered. The secret of this change is easily given. As simple as a child, the mere deference to her claims of beauty, had left her easily susceptible of imposition; and without any feeling actually enlisted in favour of Hastings, she had been on the verge of that precipice—the gulf which passion or folly so often prepares for its unheeding votaries. His professions and flatteries had gradually filled her mind, and when his continued attentions had driven all those away, from whom she had, or might have received them, it followed that she became a dependant entirely upon him, who, in creating this state of subservience, had placed her, to a certain degree at least, at his mercy. She felt this dependence now, and it
