abruptly tapped on the back, and turning round in alarm,--for such taps
were not unfamiliar to him,--he saw the cool countenance of Long Ned,
with one finger sagaciously laid beside the nose.

"How now?" said Clifford, between his ground teeth; "did I not tell thee
to put that huge bulk of thine as far from me as possible?"

"Humph!" granted Ned; "if these are my thanks, I may as well keep my
kindness to myself; but know you, my kid, that Lawyer Brandon is here,
peering through the crowd at this very moment, in order to catch a
glimpse of that woman's face of thine."

"Ha!" answered Clifford, in a very quick tone; "begone, then! I will
meet you without the rooms immediately." Clifford now turned to his
partner, and bowing very low, in reality to hide his face from those
sharp eyes which had once seen it in the court of Justice Burnflat, said:
"I trust, madam, I shall have the honour to meet you again. Is it, if I
may be allowed to ask, with your celebrated uncle that you are staying,
or--"

"With my father," answered Lucy, concluding the sentence Clifford had
left unfinished; "but my uncle has been with us, though I fear he leaves
us to-morrow."

Clifford's eyes sparkled; he made no answer, but bowing again, receded
into the crowd and disappeared. Several times that night did the
brightest eyes in Somersetshire rove anxiously round the rooms in search
of our hero; but he was seen no more.

It was on the stairs that Clifford encountered his comrades; taking an