On a wet, dark, and windy night, early in the month of April, a tradesman and his wife were returning home in high spirits from witnessing at the Cheltenham Theatre, the first dramatic representation they had attended for upwards of five and twenty years. They were not inhabitants of the town, but accidental visitors, whom the news of the approaching marriage of their son had enticed from their / village shop to be present at the joyful ceremony. Every thing was new to them, and though far from young, every thing appeared delightful. The play, which had been full of rant, bustle, and shew, so engrossed their thoughts, and furnished them with so much to say, that for a while they seemed to have forgotten a poor little apprentice girl, who, half asleep, was with difficulty keeping pace with them. Dazzled by the occasional glare of the lamps, buffetted by the wind and rain, and sometimes involved in what, comparatively, might be called total obscurity, she at length stumbled and fell, uttering a plaintive cry, which, however, the sound of a passing carriage, and the turbulence of the blast, united in preventing her friends from hearing. They proceeded on their way, unconscious of what had happened to her; whilst she, frightened at the prospect of being deserted, made an effort to rise, and was preparing regardless of some trifling hurts she had received, to run after them as expeditiously as the darkness would permit; when her steps were arrested by the firm grasp of a / powerful hand, and her blood was almost frozen in her veins on hearing close to her ear the words – (uttered in a whisper, which though inaudible to others, to her was but too distinct).