till a duty to perform. Tell the
postboys to drive on!"

"Indeed, madam, I cannot see what use it can be fretting yourself,--and
you so poorly. If you will let me go, I will see every attention paid to
the remains of my poor master."

"When my father lay dead," said Lucy, with a grave and sad sternness
in her manner, "he who is now no more sent no proxy to perform the last
duties of a brother; neither will I send one to discharge those of a
niece, and prove that I have forgotten the gratitude of a daughter.
Drive on!"

We have said that there were times when a spirit was stricken from Lucy
little common to her in general; and now the command of her uncle sat
upon her brow. On sped the horses, and for several minutes Lucy remained
silent. Her woman did not dare to speak. At length Miss Brandon turned,
and, covering her face with her hands, burst into tears so violent that
they alarmed her attendant even more than her previous stillness. "My
poor, poor uncle!" she sobbed; and those were all her words.

We must pass over Lucy's arrival at Lord Mauleverer's house; we must
pass over the weary days which elapsed till that unconscious body was
consigned to dust with which, could it have retained yet one spark of
its haughty spirit, it would have refused to blend its atoms. She had
loved the deceased incomparably beyond his merits, and resisting all
remonstrance to the contrary and all the forms of ordinary custom, she
witnessed herself the dreary ceremony which bequeathed the human remains
of William Brandon to repose and to the worm. On that same day Clifford
received the mitigation of his sentence, and on that day another trial
awaited Lucy. We think briefly to convey to the reader what that scene
was; we need only observe that Dummie Dunnaker, decoyed by his great
love for little Paul, whom he delightedly said he found not the least
"stuck up by his great fame and helewation," still lingered in the
town, and was not only aware of the relationship of the cousins, but had
gleaned from Long Ned, as they journeyed down to ------, the
affection entertained by Clifford for Lucy. Of the manner in which the
communication reached Lucy, we need not speak; suffice it to say, that
on the day in which she had performed the last duty to her uncle, she
learned for the first time her lover's situation.

On that evening, in the convict's cell, the cousins met.

Their conference was low, for the jailer stood within hearing; and it
was