thanks for her. She bent over the table to say, 'You will say
nothing I cannot bear to hear,' folded her hands, and shut her eyes,
as if she had been going to stand fire.

Oliver's clear, harsh tones, incapable of slowness or solemnity,
began to return thanks for himself, and pronounce this to be the
happy day to which he had been looking throughout his life--the day
of restoring the family inheritance to his mother, and the child of
his elder brother; he faltered--he never could calmly speak of Henry.
Failing the presence of one so dear, he rejoiced, however, to be able
to introduce to them his only daughter, and he begged that his
friends would drink the health of the heiress of Cheveleigh, Miss
Dynevor.

Never did toast apparently conduce so little to the health of the
subject. Unprepared as Clara was for such a declaration, it was to
her as if she had been publicly denounced as the supplanter of her
brother. She became deadly white, and sat bolt upright, stiff and
motionless, barely stifling a scream, and her eyes fixed between
command and entreaty on her cousin without seeing, far less
acknowledging, the bows levelled at her. Louis, alarmed by her
looks, saw that no time was to be lost; and rising hastily before any
one was ready, perilled his fame for eloquence by rapidly assuring
the gentlemen and ladies that Miss Dynevor was truly sensible of the
kindness of their welcome, and their manner of receiving the toast.
Then pushing back his chair, with 'never mind,' to Mrs. Smithers and
her scent-bottle, he was at the back of Clara's chair almost before
her confused eyes had missed him in her gasps for breath, and impulse
to do something desperate; and so she might, if his voice had not
been in her ear, his hand grasping hers, both to console and raise