e
enjoyed this little blunder of Alice's; but now her heart, like some
precious jewel that lies too deep in the bosom of the ocean for the
sun's strongest beams to reach, had sunk beneath the influence of either
cheerfulness or mirth.

"There is indeed, miss," continued Alice,

"And pray, Alice," asked her mistress, "how do you know that?"

"Why, miss," replied the girl, "I am told that of late he is looking
very ill, too. They say he has lost his spirits all to pieces, and
seldom laughs--the Lord save us!"

"They say!--who say, Alice?"

"Why," replied Alice, with a perceptible heightening of her color,
"ahem! ahem! why, Dandy Dulcimer, miss."

"And where have you seen him? Dulcimer, I mean. He, I suppose, who used
occasionally to play upon the instrument of that name in the Hall?"

"Yes, ma'am, the same. Don't you remember how beautiful he played it the
night we came in the coach to town?"

"I remember there was something very-unpleasant between him and a
farmer, I believe; but I did not pay much attention to it at the time."

"I am sorry for that, miss, for I declare to goodness, Dandy's dulcimer
isn't such an unpleasant instrument as you think; and, besides, he has
got a new one the other day that plays lovely."

Lucy felt a good deal anxious to hear some further information from
Alley upon the subject she had introduced, but saw that Dandy and his
dulcimer were likely to be substituted for it, all unconscious as the
poor girl was of the preference of the man to the master.

"He looks ill, you say, Alice?"

"Never seen him look so rosy in my life, miss, nor in such spirits."

Lucy looked into her face, and for a moment's space one slight and
feeble gleam, which no suffering could prevent, passed over it, at this
intimation of the object which Alley's fancy then dwelt upon.

"He danced a hornpipe, miss, to the tune of the Swaggerin' Jig, upon the
kitchen table," she proceeded; "and, sorra be off me, but it would do
your heart good to see the springs he would give--every one o' them a
yard high--and to hear how he'd crack his fingers as loud as the shot of
a pistol."

A slight gloom overclouded Lucy's face; but, on looking at the artless
transition from the honest sympathy which Alley had just felt for her to
a sense of happiness which it was almost a crime to disturb, it almost
instantly disappeared.

"I must not be angry with her," she said to herself; "this feeling,
after all, is only natural, an