Love may be blind, but it must be made so by excess of light. You have a
country-house within a few miles of Bath. Why not take up your abode
there instead of in a paltry lodging in the town? Give sumptuous
entertainments,--make it necessary for all the world to attend them,--
exclude, of course, this Captain Clifford; you will then meet Lucy
without a rival. At present, excepting only your title, you fight on a
level ground with this adventurer, instead of an eminence from which you
could in an instant sweep him away. Nay, he is stronger than you; he has
the opportunities afforded by a partnership in balls where you cannot
appear to advantage; he is, you say, in the first bloom of youth, he is
handsome. Reflect!--your destiny, so far as Lucy is concerned, is in
your hands. I turn to other subjects," etc. As Brandon re-read, ere he
signed, this last letter, a bitter smile sat on his harsh yet handsome
features. "If," said he, mentally, "I can effect this object,--if
Mauleverer does marry this girl,--why so much the better that she has
another, a fairer, and a more welcome lover. By the great principle of
scorn within me, which has enabled me to sneer at what weaker minds
adore, and make a footstool of that worldly honour which fools set up as
a throne, it would be to me more sweet than fame--ay, or even than power
--to see this fine-spun lord a gibe in the mouths of men,--a cuckold, a
cuckold!" and as he said the last word Brandon laughed outright. "And he
thinks, too," added he, "that he is sure of my fortune; otherwise,
perhaps, he, the goldsmith's descendant, would not dignify our house with
his proposals; but he may err there,--he may err there," and, finishing
his soliloquy, Brandon finished also his letter by--"Adieu, my dear lord,
your most affectionate friend"!

It is not difficult to conjecture the effect produced upon Lucy by
Brandon's letter. It made her wretched; she refused for days to go out;
she shut herself up in her apartment, and consumed the time in tears and