fect tone--the heroic mask admirable.

Algernon examined the downcast visage at his side, and contrived to
allude to the popular preacher. He was instantly introduced to Ripton's
sister, Miss Thompson.

The Captain bowed, smiling melancholy approval of his nephew's choice of
a minister. After a few stray remarks, and an affable salute to Miss
Thompson, he hobbled away, and then the three sealed volcanoes breathed,
and Lucy's arm ceased to be squeezed quite so much up to the heroic
pitch.

This incident quickened their steps homeward to the sheltering wings of
Mrs. Berry. All that passed between them on the subject comprised a
stammered excuse from Ripton for his conduct, and a good-humoured
rejoinder from Richard, that he had gained a sister by it: at which
Ripton ventured to wish aloud Miss Desborough would only think so, and a
faint smile twitched poor Lucy's lips to please him. She hardly had
strength to reach her cage. She had none to eat of Mrs. Berry's nice
little dinner. To be alone, that she might cry and ease her heart of its
accusing weight of tears, was all she prayed for. Kind Mrs. Berry,
slipping into her bedroom to take off her things, found the fair body in
a fevered shudder, and finished by undressing her completely and putting
her to bed.

"Just an hour's sleep, or so," the mellifluous woman explained the case
to the two anxious gentlemen. "A quiet sleep and a cup of warm tea goes
for more than twenty doctors, it do--when there's the flutters," she
pursued. "I know it by myself. And a good cry beforehand's better than
the best of medicine."

She nursed them into a make-believe of eating, and retired to her softer
charge and sweeter babe, reflecting, "Lord! Lord! the three of 'em don't
make fifty! I'm as old as two and a half of 'em, to say the least." Mrs.
Berry used her apron, and by virtue of their tender years took them all
three into her heart.

Left alone, neither of the young men could swallow a morsel.

"Did you see the change come over her?" Richard whispered.

Ripton fiercely accused his prodigious stupidity.

The lover flung down his knife and fork: "What could I do? If I had said
nothing, we should have been suspected. I was obliged to speak. And she
hates a lie! See! it has struck her down. God forgive me!"

Ripton affected a serene mind: "It was a fright, Richard," he said.
"That's what Mrs. Berry means by flutters. Those old women talk in that
way. You heard what she said. And