PERCIVAL VISITS LUCRETIA.

Having once ascertained the house in which Helen lived, it was no
difficult matter for St. John to learn the name of the guardian whom Beck
had supposed to be her mother. No common delight mingled with Percival's
amaze when in that name he recognized one borne by his own kinswoman.
Very little indeed of the family history was known to him. Neither his
father nor his mother ever willingly conversed of the fallen heiress,--it
was a subject which the children had felt to be proscribed; but in the
neighbourhood, Percival had of course heard some mention of Lucretia as
the haughty and accomplished Miss Clavering, who had, to the astonishment
of all, stooped to a mesalliance with her uncle's French librarian. That
her loss of the St. John property, the succession of Percival's father,
were unexpected by the villagers and squires around, and perhaps set down
to the caprice of Sir Miles, or to an intellect impaired by apoplectic
attacks, it was not likely that he should have heard. The rich have the
polish of their education, and the poor that instinctive tact, so
wonderful amongst the agricultural peasantry, to prevent such unmannerly
disclosures or unwelcome hints; and both by rich and poor, the Vernon St.
Johns were too popular and respected for wanton allusions to subjects
calculated to pain them. All, therefore, that Percival knew of his
relation was that she had resided from infancy with Sir Miles; that after
their uncle's death she had married an inferior in rank, of the name of
Dalibard, and settled abroad; that she was a person of peculiar manners,
and, he had heard somewhere, of rare gifts. He had been unable to learn
the name of the young lady staying with Madame Dalibard; he had learned
only that she went by some other name, and was not the daughter of the
lady who rented the house. Certainly it was possible that this last
might not be his kinswoman, after all. The name, though strange to
English ears, and not common in France, was no sufficient warrant for