re I proceed with the
final cause of our temporary alteration of plan, and refer again to those
times when man walked the earth fearless, before Plague had become Queen of
the World.

There resided a family in the neighbourhood of Windsor, of very humble
pretensions, but which had been an object of interest to us on account of
one of the persons of whom it was composed. The family of the Claytons had
known better days; but, after a series of reverses, the father died a
bankrupt, and the mother heartbroken, and a confirmed invalid, retired with
her five children to a little cottage between Eton and Salt Hill. The
eldest of these children, who was thirteen years old, seemed at once from
the influence of adversity, to acquire the sagacity and principle belonging
to a more mature age. Her mother grew worse and worse in health, but Lucy
attended on her, and was as a tender parent to her younger brothers and
sisters, and in the meantime shewed herself so good-humoured, social, and
benevolent, that she was beloved as well as honoured, in her little
neighbourhood.

Lucy was besides extremely pretty; so when she grew to be sixteen, it was
to be supposed, notwithstanding her poverty, that she should have admirers.
One of these was the son of a country-curate; he was a generous,
frank-hearted youth, with an ardent love of knowledge, and no mean
acquirements. Though Lucy was untaught, her mother's conversation and
manners gave her a taste for refinements superior to her present situation.
She loved the youth even without knowing it, except that in any difficulty
she naturally turned to him for aid, and awoke with a lighter heart every
Sunday, because she knew that she would be met and accompanied by him in
her evening walk with her sisters. She had another admirer, one of the
head-waiters at the inn at Salt Hill. He also was not without pretensions
to urbane superiority, such as he learnt from gentlemen's servants and
waiting-maids, who initiating him in all the slang of high life below
stairs, rendered his arrogant temper ten times more intrusive. Lucy did not
disclaim him--she was incapable of that feeling; but she was sorry when
she saw him approach, and quietly resisted all his endeavours to establish
an intimacy. The fellow soon discovered that his rival was preferred to
him; and this changed what was at first a chance admiration into a passion,
whose main springs were envy, and a base desire to deprive his competitor
of the