, mobile and restless as a serpent, condemned to
that helpless decrepitude, chained to the uneasy seat, not as in the
resigned and passive imbecility of extreme age, but rather as one whom
in the prime of life the rack has broken, leaving the limbs inert,
the mind active, the form as one dead, the heart with superabundant
vigour,--a cripple's impotence and a Titan's will! What, in that dreary
imprisonment and amidst the silence she habitually preserved, passed
through the caverns of that breast, one can no more conjecture than
one can count the blasts that sweep and rage through the hollows of
impenetrable rock, or the elements that conflict in the bosom of the
volcano, everlastingly at work. She had read and replaced the letters,
and leaning her cheek on her hand, was gazing vacantly on the wall, when
Varney intruded on that dismal solitude.

He closed the door after him with more than usual care; and drawing a
seat close to Lucretia, said, "Belle-mere, the time has arrived for you
to act; my part is wellnigh closed."

"Ay," said Lucretia, wearily, "what is the news you bring?"

"First," replied Varney, and as he spoke, he shut the window, as if
his whisper could possibly be heard without,--"first, all this business
connected with Helen is at length arranged. You know when, agreeably to
your permission, I first suggested to her, as it were casually, that you
were so reduced in fortune that I trembled to regard your future; that
you had years ago sacrificed nearly half your pecuniary resources to
maintain her parents,--she of herself reminded me that she was entitled,
when of age, to a sum far exceeding all her wants, and--"

"That I might be a pensioner on the child of William Mainwaring and
Susan Mivers," interrupted Lucretia. "I know that, and thank her not.
Pass on."

"And you know, too, that in the course of my conversation with the girl
I let out also incidentally that, even so, you were dependent on the
chances of her life; that if she died (and youth itself is mortal)
before she was of age, the sum left her by her grandfather would revert
to her father's family; and so, by hints, I drew her on to ask if there
was no mode by which, in case of her death, she might insure subsistence
to you. So that you see the whole scheme was made at her own prompting.
I did but, as a man of business, suggest the means,--an insurance on her
life."

"Varney, these details are hateful. I do not doubt that you have done
all t