sorrow."

"I wouldn't advise your honour," said the good dame. "It's an awful hour
when the fit's on him; he knows not friend or foe, and scarcely knows
me, your honour."

"Never mind, I'll see him."

Vivian entered the house; but who shall describe the scene of
desolation! The room was entirely stripped; there was nothing left, save
the bare whitewashed walls, and the red tiled flooring. The room was
darkened; and seated on an old block of wood, which had been pulled out
of the orchard, since the bailiff had left, was John Conyers. The fire
was out, but his feet were still among the ashes. His head was buried in
his hands, and bowed down nearly to his knees. The eldest girl, a fine
sensible child of about thirteen, was sitting with two brothers on the
floor in a corner of the room, motionless, their faces grave, and still
as death, but tearless. Three young children, of an age too tender to
know grief, were acting unmeaning gambols near the door.

"Oh! pray beware, your honour," earnestly whispered the poor dame, as
she entered the cottage with the visitor.

Vivian walked up with a silent step to the end of "the room, where
Conyers was sitting. He remembered this little room, when he thought it
the very model of the abode of an English husbandman. The neat row of
plates, and the well-scoured utensils, and the fine old Dutch clock, and
the ancient and amusing ballad, purchased at some neighbouring fair, or
of some itinerant bibliopole, and pinned against the wall, all gone!