e colour rush from his cheek,
and a tingling and involuntary pain ran wandering through the channels
of his blood, even from the roots of the hair to the soles of his feet.
But the stern soul of Brandon was not one which shadows could long
affright. He nerved himself to meet the grim thought thus forced upon
his mental eye, and he gazed on it with a steady and enduring look.

"Well," thought he, "is my hour coming, or have I yet the ordinary term
of mortal nature to expect? It is true, I have lately suffered these
strange revulsions of the frame with somewhat of an alarming frequency;
perhaps this medicine, which healed the anguish of one infirmity, has
produced another more immediately deadly. Yet why should I think this?
My sleep is sound and calm, my habits temperate, my mind active and
clear as in its best days. In my youth I never played the traitor with
my constitution; why should it desert me at the very threshold of my
age? Nay, nay, these are but passing twitches, chills of the blood
that begins to wax thin. Shall I learn to be less rigorous in my diet?
Perhaps wine may reward my abstinence in avoiding it for my luxuries,
by becoming a cordial to my necessities! Ay, I will consult,--I will
consult, I must not die yet. I have--let me see, three--four grades
to gain before the ladder is scaled. And, above all, I must regain my
child! Lucy married to Mauleverer, myself a peer, my son wedded to-whom?
Pray God he be not married already! My nephews and my children nobles!
the house of Brandon restored, my power high in the upward gaze of
men, my fame set on a more lasting basis than a skill in the quirks of
law,--these are yet to come; these I will not die till I have enjoyed!
Men die not till their destinies are fulfilled. The spirit that swells
and soars within me says that the destiny of William Brandon is but half
begun!"

With this conclusion, Brandon sought his pillow. What were the
reflections of the prisoner whom he was to judge? Need we ask? Let
us picture to ourselves his shattered health, the languor of sickness
heightening the gloom which makes the very air of a jail; his certainty
of the doom to be passed against him; his knowledge that the uncle of
Lucy Brandon was to be his judge, that Mauleverer was to be his accuser,
and that in all human probability the only woman he had ever loved must
sooner or later learn the criminality of his life and the ignominy of
his death; let us but glance at the above b