e had been left an orphan at a very early age,
and Mrs. Stevens--his aunt, and then a maiden lady--had, in accordance
with his father's will, taken charge of himself and brother till they
severally attained their majority. Long, however, before that, she
married Mr. Stevens, by whom she had two children--Lucy and Emily. Her
husband, whom she survived but two months, died insolvent; and in
obedience to the dying wishes of his aunt, for whom he appears to have
felt the tenderest esteem, he took the eldest of her orphan children to
his home, intending to regard and provide for her as his own adopted
child and heiress. Emily, the other sister, found refuge in the house of
a still more distant relative than himself.

The Stevenses had gone to live in a remote part of England--Yorkshire, I
believe--and it thus fell out, that, till his cousin Lucy arrived at her
new home, he had not seen her for more than ten years. The pale, and
somewhat plain child, as he had esteemed her, he was startled to find had
become a charming woman; and her naturally gay and joyous temperament,
quick talents, and fresh young beauty, rapidly acquired an overwhelming
influence over him. Strenuously, but vainly, he struggled against the
growing infatuation--argued, reasoned with himself--passed in review the
insurmountable objections to such a union, the difference of age--he,
leading towards thirty-seven, she, barely twenty-one: he, crooked,
deformed, of reserved, taciturn temper--she, full of young life, and
grace, and beauty. It was useless; and nearly a year had passed in the
bootless struggle, when Lucy Stevens, who had vainly striven to blind
herself to the nature of the emotions by which her cousin and guardian
was animated towards her, intimated a wish to accept her sister Emily's
invitation to pass two or three months with her. This brought the affair
to a crisis. Buoying himself up with the illusions which people in such
an unreasonable frame of mind create for themselves, he suddenly entered
the sitting-room set apart for her private use, with the desperate purpose
of making his beautiful cousin a formal offer of his hand. She was not in
the apartment, but her opened writing-desk, and a partly-finished letter
lying on it, showed that she had been recently there, and would probably
soon return. Mr. Lisle took two or three agitated turns about the room,
one of which brought him close to the writing-desk, and his glance
involuntarily fell upon t