"True, my dear Lucy, and I am glad to see you here for many, many
reasons. No, your father's resentments would perish for want of nurture
in a heart like yours. But, Lucy, there is a subject in which I trust we
both feel a dearer and a deeper interest than that of family feud. I
am aware of this hateful union which your father wishes to bring about
between you and this Lord Dunroe. I have been long aware of it, as
you know; but need I say that I place every reliance, all honorable
confidence, in your truth and attachment?"

He had approached, and gently taking her hand in his as he spoke, he
uttered these words in a tone so full at once of tenderness and that
sympathy to which he knew her sufferings on this point had entitled
her, that Lucy was considerably affected, although she restrained her
emotions as well as she could.

"If it were not so," she replied, in a voice whose melody was made
more touchingly beautiful by the slight tremor which she endeavored to
repress, "if it were not so, Charles, I would not now be a fugitive.
from my father's roof."

The stranger's eye sparkled with the rapturous enthusiasm of love,
as the gentle girl, all blushes, gave expression to an assurance so
gratifying, so delicious to his heart.

"Dearest Lucy," said he, "I fear I am unworthy of you. Oh, could you but
know how those words of yours have made my heart tremble with an excess
of transport which language fails to express, you would also know that
the affection with which I love you is as tender, as pure, as unselfish,
as ever warmed the heart of man. And yet, as I said, I fear it is
unworthy of you. I know your father's character, his determination, the
fierce force of his will, and the energy with which he pursues every
object on which he sets his heart or ambition. I say I know all this,
and I sometimes fear the consequences. What can the will of only one
pure, gentle, and delicate heart avail against the united powers of
ambition, authority, persuasion, force, determination, perhaps violence?
What, I repeat, can a gentle heart like yours ultimately avail against
such a host of difficulties? And it is for this reason that I say I am
unworthy of you, for I fear--and you know that perfect love casteth out
all fear."

"My dear Charles, if love were without fear it would lose half its
tenderness. An eternal sunshine, would soon sicken the world. But as
for your apprehensions of my solitary heart failing against such
difficult