the girl.'

Lucilla was trembling from head to foot, and a light gleamed in her eyes;
but she spoke so quietly that her cousins did not apprehend her intention
in the question--

'You mean what you say?'

'Of course I do,' said Charles. 'I'm not sure of the law, and some of
the big-wigs are very cantankerous about declaring an affair of this sort
null; but I imagine there is a fair chance of his getting quit for some
annual allowance to her; and I'll do my best, even if I had to go to
London about it. A man is never ruined till he is married.'

'Thank you,' returned Lucilla, her lips trembling with bitter irony.
'Now I know what you all are made of. We are obliged for your offered
exertion, but we are not inclined to become traitors.'

'Cilly! I thought you had more sense! You are no child!'

'I am a woman--I feel for womanhood. I am a sister--I feel for my
brother's honour.'

Charles burst into a laugh. Eloisa remonstrated--'My dear, consider the
disgrace to the whole family--a village schoolmistress!'

'Our ideas differ as to disgrace,' said Lucilla. 'Let me go, Ratia; I
must pack for the diligence.'

The brother and sister threw themselves between her and the door. 'Are
you insane, Cilly? What do you mean should become of you? Are you going
to join the _menage_, and teach the A B C?'

'I am going to own my sister while yet there is time,' said Lucilla.
'While you are meditating how to make her a deserted outcast, death is
more merciful. Pining under the miseries of an unowned marriage, she is
fast dying of pressure on the brain. I am going in the hope of hearing
her call me sister. I am going to take charge of her child, and stand by
my brother.'

'Dying, poor thing! Why did you not tell us before?' said Horatia,
sobered.

'I did not know it was to save Charles so much _kind trouble_,' said
Lucilla. 'Let me go, Rashe; you cannot detain me.'

'I do believe she is delighted,' said Horatia, releasing her.

In truth, she was inspirited by perceiving any door of escape. Any vivid
sensation was welcome in the irksome vacancy that pursued her in the
absence of immediate excitement. Devoid of the interest of opposition,
and of the bracing changes to the Holt, her intercourse with the
Charterises had become a weariness and vexation of spirit. Idle foreign
life deteriorated them, and her principle and delicacy suffered frequent
offences; but like all living wilfully in temptation, she seemed