Our eyes met--I cannot say what it was--but in a moment the whole
current of my thoughts was changed. Her look was bent upon me, beaming
with softness and affection; her hand gently pressed my own, and her
lips murmured my name.

The door burst open at this moment, and Sir George Dashwood appeared.
Lucy turned one fleeting look upon her father, and fell fainting into my
arms.

"God bless you, my boy!" said the old general as he hurriedly wiped a
tear from his eye. "I am now indeed a happy father."

* * * * *




Tom Burke of "Ours"


In 1840 Charles Lever, on an invitation from Sir John
Crompton, Secretary to the British Embassy in Belgium, forsook
Ireland for Brussels, where for a time he followed his
profession of medicine. Two years later an offer of the
editorship of the "Dublin University Magazine" recalled him to
Ireland, when he definitely abandoned a medical career and
settled down to literature permanently. The first fruit of
that appointment was "Tom Burke of Ours," published, after
running serially in the magazine, in 1844. It is more serious