must be!) so partial to crime!"

"I partial to crime!" returned Mauleverer, thinking he had stumbled
unawares on some outrageous democrat, yet smiling as softly as usual;
"you judge me harshly, Mr. Brandon! You must do me more justice, and you
can only do that by knowing me better."

Whatever unlucky answer the squire might otherwise have made was cut off
by the entrance of Lucy; and the earl, secretly delighted at the
interruption, rose to render her his homage, and to remind her of the
introduction he had formerly been so happy as to obtain to her through
the friendship of Mr. William Brandon,--a "friendship," said the gallant
nobleman, "to which I have often before been indebted, but which was
never more agreeably exerted on my behalf."

Upon this Lucy, who though she had been so painfully bashful during her
meeting with Mr. Clifford, felt no overpowering diffidence in the
presence of so much greater a person, replied laughingly, and the earl
rejoined by a second compliment. Conversation was now no longer an
effort; and Mauleverer, the most consummate of epicures, whom even
royalty trembled to ask without preparation, on being invited by the
unconscious squire to partake of the family dinner, eagerly accepted the
invitation. It was long since the knightly walls of Warlock had been
honoured by the presence of a guest so courtly. The good squire heaped
his plate with a profusion of boiled beef; and while the poor earl was
contemplating in dismay the Alps upon Alps which he was expected to
devour, the gray-headed butler, anxious to serve him with alacrity,
whipped away the overloaded plate, and presently returned it, yet more
astoundingly surcharged with an additional world of a composition of
stony colour and sudorific aspect, which, after examining in mute