The String of Pearls (1850), p. 291

from the hands of the clerical-looking gentleman, and he uttered a groan that
made Todd start.
"Hopkins&£8212;Hopkins&£8212;Gabriel Hopkins!"
"Sir."
"Hopkins! my friend&£8212;my councillor&£8212;my fellow student&£8212;my companion&£8212;my Mentor&£8212;my&£8212;my Hopkins!"
The clerical-looking gentleman shut up his face in his hands, and rocked to and fro in an agony of grief.
"Good God, sir," cried Todd, advancing. " What is the meaning of this?"
"In that paper you will find the death of Hopkins inserted, sir. Yes, in the obituary of that paper. Gabriel Hopkins&£8212;the true&£8212;the gentle&£8212;the affectionate&£8212;the christian&£8212;Hop&£8212;kins!"
"How sorry I am, sir," said Todd. "But, pray sit in this chair, sir, a shave will compose your feelings."
"A shave! You barbarian. Do you think I could think of being shaved within two minutes of hearing of the death of the oldest and best friend I ever had in the world. No&£8212;no. Oh, Hopkins&£8212;Hop&£8212;kins!"
The Rev. gentleman in a paroxysm of grief rushed from the house, and Todd himself sunk upon the shaving chair.
"It is, it must be so," cried Todd, as his face became livid with rage and apprehension. "There is more in these coincidences than mere chance will suffice to account for. Why is it that, if I have a customer here, some one else will be sure to come in, and then after waiting until he is gone himself, leave upon some frivolous excuse? Do I stand upon a mine? Am I suspected?&£8212;am I watched ? or&£8212;or more terrible, ten times more terrible question still, am&£8212;am I at length, with all my care, discovered?"

CHAPTER LXIII.

JOHANNA STARTS FOR TODD'S.

We will leave Todd to the indulgence of some of the most uncomfortable reflections that ever passed through his mind, while we once again seek the sweet companionship of the fair Johanna, and her dear romantic friend, Arabella Wilmot. The project which these two young and inexperienced girls were, bent upon, was one that might well appal the stoutest heart that ever beat in human bosom. It was one which, with a more enlarged experience of the world,
they would not for one moment have entertained, but by long thought and much grief upon the subject of her hopeless love, Johanna had much observed that clearness of perception that otherwise would have saved her from what to all appearance is a piece of extravagance. As for Arabella, she had originally conceived the idea from her love for the romantic, and it was only when it came near to the execution of it that she started at the possible and indeed highly probable danger of the loss to one whom she loved so sincerely as she loved Johanna. But
all that has passed away. The remonstrances have been made, and made in vain; Arabella is silenced, and nothing remains but to detail to the reader the steps by which the courageous girl sought to carry out a plan so fraught with a thousand dangers. Both Arabella and Johanna sought the abode of the latter's father, for the first step in the affair was to say something there which was to account seemingly satisfactorily for any lengthened stay of Johanna from home.
This was by no manner of means a task of any difficulty, for in addition to the
old spectacle maker being innocence itself as regarded the secreting anything in
the shape of a plot, Arabella Wilmot was the very last person in all the world he would have thought capable of joining in one. As for Mrs. Oakley, she was by far too intent, as she said herself frequently, upon things which are eternal,