he unfinished letter. Had a deadly serpent
leaped suddenly at his throat, the shock could not have been greater. At
the head of the sheet of paper was a clever pen-and-ink sketch of Lucy
Stevens and himself--he, kneeling to her in a lovelorn, ludicrous
attitude, and she, laughing immoderately at his lachrymose and pitiful
aspect and speech. The letter was addressed to her sister Emily; and the
enraged lover saw not only that his supposed secret was fully known, but
that he himself was mocked, laughed at, for his doting folly. At least
this was his interpretation of the words which swam before his eyes. At
the instant Lucy returned, and a torrent of imprecation burst from the
furious man, in which wounded self-love, rageful pride, and long pent-up
passion, found utterance in wild and bitter words. Half an hour
afterwards Lucy Stevens had left the merchant's house--for ever, as it
proved. She, indeed, on arriving at her sister's, sent a letter,
supplicating forgiveness for the thoughtless, and, as he deemed it,
insulting sketch, intended only for Emily's eye; but he replied merely by
a note written by one of his clerks, informing Miss Stevens that Mr.
Lisle declined any further correspondence with her.

The ire of the angered and vindictive man had, however, begun sensibly to
abate, and old thoughts, memories, duties, suggested partly by the blank
which Lucy's absence made in his house, partly by remembrance of the
solemn promise he had made her mother, were strongly reviving in his
mind, when he read the announcement of marriage in a provincial journal,
directed to him, as he believed, in the bride's hand-writing; but this
was an error, her sister having sent the newspaper. Mr. Lisle also
construed this into a deliberate mockery and insult, and from that hour
strove to banish all images and thoughts connected with his cousin, from
his heart and memory.

He unfortunately adopted the very worst course possible for effecting
this object. Had he remained amid the buzz and tumult of active life, a
mere sentimental disappointment, such as thousands of us have sustained
and afterwards forgotten, would, there can be little doubt, have soon
ceased to afflict him. He chose to retire from business, visited Watley,
and habits of miserliness growing rapidly upon his cankered mind, never
afterwards removed from the lodgings he had hired on first arriving
there. Thus madly hugging to himself sharp-pointed memories, which a
sensible ma