when the first of that train of events happened which
it is herein proposed to record.

Mrs Walford was wont to assert, just about this time, that Lucy was the
very living picture of what she herself used to be when a girl. If this
was indeed true, it was at once an evidence of that remarkable good
taste which the late "cap'n" was said to have possessed, and of the
extraordinary changes effected by the hand of Time, for no one could
ever have suspected such a resemblance without Mrs Walford's assurance.
The old lady was a sad and subdued personage, thin and angular of
figure and face, with prominent cheek-bones, eye-brows, and chin, dark
eyes, deeply sunk in their sockets, a broad forehead, ploughed with
innumerable wrinkles, a long sharp aquiline nose, a large thin-lipped
mouth, and a querulous temper.

Lucy, on the other hand, was of medium height, slight, graceful figure,
abounding in delicate curves, with small hands and feet, an exquisite
complexion, a face, the sweet piquant loveliness of which set all the
youth of Alverstoke--and Gosport too, for that matter--by the ears, a
wealth of long silky golden hair, which persisted in twisting itself
into a most distracting conglomeration of wavy curls, and a temper which
nothing--not even her mother's querulousness--could ruffle.

That Lucy should be fairly beset by suitors was only natural. There was
not a single bold young smuggler of marriageable age in all the country
round about who did not cherish in a greater or lesser degree the fond
hope of one day making her his own, albeit most of them were--it is only
just to say--dimly cognisant of the fact that she was much too good for
the best of them. It was probably in consequence of this feeling that
only one or two--the boldest of the bold of this dashing fraternity--
had, so far, mustered up the courage to approach the young lady with a
distinct proposal of marriage; and these, it is hardly necessary to say,
had been firmly, but as pleasantly as possible, sent to the right-about.
This class of lovers gave Lucy no trouble whatever; bold as they might
be in the pursuit of their lawless avocation, they were diffident to the
verge of absurdity in the presence of beauty, if associated with dignity
and refinement; they were painfully conscious of their uncouth bearing
and manners; and Lucy had little difficulty in keeping them at a proper
distance.

But if these admirers gave her no trouble, there were others--notabl