ay?"

"I really don't know," I answered.

"He has cut two teeth! Put your finger in and feel."

Others might bewail the family misfortune. The family triumph filled the
secret mind of Mrs. Finch, to the exclusion of every other earthly
consideration. I put my finger in as instructed, and got instantly bitten
by the ferocious baby. But for a new outburst of the rector's voice at
the moment, Mrs. Finch (if I am any judge of physiognomy) must have
certainly relieved herself by a scream of delight. As it was, she opened
her mouth; and (having lost her handkerchief as already stated) retired
into a corner, and gagged herself with the baby.

In the meantime, Mr. Finch had produced from a cupboard near the
fireplace, two letters. The first he threw down impatiently on the table.
"Oh, dear, dear! what a nuisance other people's letters are!" The second
he handled with extraordinary care; offering it to Oscar with a heavy
sigh, and with eyes that turned up martyr-like to the ceiling. "Rouse
yourself, and read it," said Mr. Finch in his most pathetic pulpit tones.
"I would have spared you, Oscar, if I could. All our hopes depend, dear
boy, on what you can say to guide us when you have read those lines."

Oscar took the enclosure out of the envelope--ran over the first
words--glanced at the signature--and, with a look of mingled rage and
horror, threw the letter on the floor.

"Don't ask me to read it!" he cried, in the first burst of passion which
had escaped him yet. "If I read it, I shall kill him when we meet." He
dropped into a chair, and hid his face in his hands. "Oh, Nugent! Nugent!
Nugent!" he moaned to himself, with a cry that was dreadful to hear.

It was no time for standing on ceremony. I picked up the letter, and
looked at it without asking leave. It proved to be the letter from Nugent
(already inserted at the close of Lucilla's Journal), informing Miss
Batchford of her niece's flight from Ramsgate, and signed in Oscar's
name. The only words which it is necessary to repeat here, are
these:--"She accompanies me, at my express request, to the house of a
married lady who is a relative of mine, and under whose care she will
remain, until the time arrives for our marriage."

Those lines instantly lightened my heart of the burden that had oppressed
it on the journey. Nugent's married relative was Oscar's married relative
too. Oscar had only to tell us where the lady lived--and Lucilla would be
found!

I stopped Mr