its reluctance to say "No,"--that simple cause of misery to the over-
timid. A few sentences more, full of courage, confidence, and passion,
on the part of the woman, of constraint and yet of soothed and grateful
affection on that of the man, and the affianced parted.

Mainwaring had already given orders to have his trunks sent to him at his
father's; and, a hardy pedestrian by habit, he now struck across the
park, passed the dell and the hollow tree, commonly called "Guy's Oak,"
and across woodland and fields golden with ripening corn, took his way to
the town, in the centre of which, square, solid, and imposing, stood the
respectable residence of his bustling, active, electioneering father.

Lucretia's eye followed a form as fair as ever captivated maiden's
glance, till it was out of sight; and then, as she emerged from the shade
of the cedars into the more open space of the garden, her usual
thoughtful composure was restored to her steadfast countenance. On the
terrace, she caught sight of Vernon, who had just quitted his own room,
where he always breakfasted alone, and who was now languidly stretched on
a bench, and basking in the sun. Like all who have abused life, Vernon
was not the same man in the early part of the day. The spirits that rose
to temperate heat the third hour after noon, and expanded into glow when
the lights shone over gay carousers, at morning were flat and exhausted.
With hollow eyes and that weary fall of the muscles of the cheeks which
betrays the votary of Bacchus,--the convivial three-bottle man,--Charley
Vernon forced a smile, meant to be airy and impertinent, to his pale
lips, as he rose with effort, and extended three fingers to his cousin.

"Where have you been hiding? Catching bloom from the roses? You have
the prettiest shade of colour,--just enough; not a hue too much. And
there is Sir Miles's valet gone to the rectory, and the fat footman