adjourned to his chamber. Even then it seems that sleep did not visit
his eyelids; for a wealthy grazier, who lay in the room below, complained
bitterly the next morning of some person walking overhead "in all manner
of strides, just for all the world like a happarition in boots."




CHAPTER XXIII.

Viola. And dost thou love me?
Lysander. . . . Love thee, Viola? Do I not fly thee when my
being drinks Light from thine eyes?--that flight is all my answer!

The Bride, Act ii. sc. 1.

The curtain meditations of the squire had not been without the produce of
a resolve. His warm heart at once reopened to the liking he had formerly
conceived for Clifford; he longed for an opportunity to atone for his
past unkindness, and to testify his present gratitude; moreover, he felt
at once indignant at, and ashamed of, his late conduct in joining the
popular, and, as he now fully believed, the causeless prepossession
against his young friend, and before a more present and a stronger
sentiment his habitual deference for his brother's counsels faded easily
away. Coupled with these favourable feelings towards Clifford were his
sagacious suspicions, or rather certainty, of Lucy's attachment to her
handsome deliverer; and he had at least sufficient penetration to
perceive that she was not likely to love him the less for the night's
adventure. To all this was added the tender recollection of his wife's
parting words; and the tears and tell-tale agitation of Lucy in the