marriage; under which melancholy circumstances I may as well go on my
way, although I cannot do it as I expected to have done--rejoicing. Good
morning, Mr. Stoker."

Our readers ought to be sufficiently acquainted, we presume, with the
state of Lucy's feelings after the events of the day and the disclosures
that had been made. Sir Thomas Gourlay--we may as well call him so for
the short time he will be on the stage--stunned--crushed--wrecked--
ruined, was instantly obliged to go to bed. The shock sustained by his
system, both physically and mentally, was terrific in its character, and
fearful in its results. His incoherency almost amounted to frenzy. He
raved--he stormed--he cursed--he blasphemed; but amidst this dark tumult
of thought and passion, there might ever be observed the prevalence
of the monster evil--the failure of his ambition for his daughter's
elevation to the rank of a countess. Never, indeed, was there such a
tempest of human passion at work in a brain as raged in his.

"It's a falsehood, I didn't murder my son," he raved; "or if I did, what
care I about that? I am a man of steel. My daughter--my daughter was my
thought. Well, Dunroe, all is right at last--eh? ha--ha--ha! I managed
it; but I knew my system was the right one. Lady Dunroe!--very good,
very good to begin with; but not what I wish to see, to hear, to feel
before I die. Nurse me, now, if I died without seeing her Countess
of Cullamore, but I'd break my heart. 'Make way, there--way for the
Countess of Cullamore!'--ha! does not that sound well? But then, the old
Earl! Curse him, what keeps him on the stage so long? Away with the
old carrion!--away with him! But what was that that happened to-day, or
yesterday? Misery, torture, perdition!--disgraced, undone, ruined! Is
it true, though? Is this joy? I expected--I feared something like
this. Will no one tell me what has happened? Here, Lucy--Countess of
Cullamore!--where are you? Now, Lucy, now--put your heel on them--grind
them, my girl--remember the cold and distrustful looks your father got
from the world--especially from those of your own sex--remember it all,
now, Lucy--Countess of Cullamore, I mean--remember it, I say, my lady,
for your father's sake. Now, my girl, for pride; now for the haughty
sneer; now for the aristocratic air of disdain; now for the day of
triumph over the mob of the great vulgar. And that fellow--that reverend
old shark who would eat any one of his Christian brethre