e wedding!" exclaimed the stranger, looking aghast. "God of heaven,
old man, do you mean to say that they are about to be married so
soon?--about to be married at all? But I will leave you," he added;
"there is no possibility of wringing anything out of you."

"Wait a little," continued Corbet. "What I'm goin' to tell you won't do
you any harm, at any rate."

"Be quick, then. Gracious heaven!--married!--Curses seize you, old man,
be quick."

"On the mornin' afther to-morrow the marriage is to take place in Sir
Thomas's own house. Lord Dunroe's sisther is to be bridesmaid, and a
young fellow named Roberts--"

"I know--I have met him."

"Well, and did you ever see any one that he resembled, or that resembled
him? I hope in the Almighty," he added, uttering the ejaculation
evidently in connection with some private thought or purpose of his own,
"I hope in the Almighty that this sickness will keep off o' me for a
couple o' days at any rate. Did you ever see any one that resembled
him?"

"Yes," replied the stranger, starting, for the thought had flashed upon
him; "he is the living image of Miss Gourlay! Why do you ask?"

"Bekaise, merely for a raison I have; but if you have patience, you'll
find that the longer you live, the more you'll know; only at this time
you'll know no more from me, barrin' that this same young officer is to
be his lordship's groom's-man. Dr. Sombre, the clergyman of the parish,
is to marry them in the baronet's house. A Mrs. Mainwaring, too, is to
be there; Miss Gourlay begged that she would be allowed to come, and he
says she may. You see now how well I know everything that happens there,
don't you?" he asked, with a grin of triumph. "But I tell you there
will be more at the same weddin' than he thinks. So now--ah, this
pain!--there's another string of it--I feel it go through me like
an arrow--so now you may go and see Lady Gourlay, and break the glad
tidin's to her."

With feelings akin to awe and of repugnance, but not at all of
contempt--for old Corbet was a man whom no one could despise--the
stranger took his departure, and proceeded to Lady Gourlay's, with a
vague impression that the remarkable likeness between Lucy and young
Roberts was not merely accidental.

He found her at home, placid as usual, but with evidences of a
resignation that was at once melancholy and distressing to witness.
The struggle of this admirable woman's heart, though sustained by high
Christian feeling, was,