not, or to oppose her, without strong reason, where she does: though she
be but a child now, I know enough of her to feel convinced that if ever
she love, she will love too well for her own happiness, even with all
things in her favour." These words, these recollections, joined to the
remembrance of the cold-hearted scheme of William Brandon, which he had
allowed himself to favour, and of his own supineness towards Lucy's
growing love for Clifford, till resistance became at once necessary and
too late, all smote him with a remorseful sorrow, and fairly sobbing
himself, he said, "Thy mother, child! ah, would that she were living, she
would never have neglected thee as I have done!"

The squire's self-reproach made Lucy's tears cease on the instant; and as
she covered her father's hands with kisses, she replied only by vehement
accusations against herself, and praises of his too great fatherly
fondness and affection. This little burst, on both sides, of honest and
simple-hearted love ended in a silence full of tender and mingled
thoughts; and as Lucy still clung to the breast of the old man, uncouth
as he was in temper, below even mediocrity in intellect, and altogether
the last person in age or mind or habit that seemed fit for a confidant
in the love of a young and enthusiastic girl, she felt the old homely
truth that under all disadvantages there are, in this hollow world, few
in whom trust can be so safely reposed, few who so delicately and
subtilely respect the confidence, as those from whom we spring.

The father and daughter had been silent for some minutes, and the former
was about to speak, when the carriage suddenly stopped. The squire heard
a rough voice at the horses' heads; he looked forth from the window to
see, through the mist of the night, what could possibly be the matter,
and he encountered in this action, just one inch from his forehead, the
protruded and shining barrel of a horse-pistol. We may believe, without