Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.

Sir Brook went by invitation

ke, "he generally wants you to talk; when he a

certainly-had its application in the present cas

w who was one of us yesterday. Tobin, our doctor here, who is a perfect commission-agent for scandal, says he is the greatest scamp going; that about eight or ten months ago the 'Times' was full of his exploit

believe?" asked Sir Brook, as

t I tell you, if you ask me, that I

lost; lent freely, and lost; raised at ruinous interest, and renewed at still more ruinous; but his father has paid every shilling of it out of that fortune which one day was to

ured him of e

s, and I a good many more than you, and will you tell me that time has cured either of us of

trongly against the doctrine. Many men are wiser

often deceived in after than in early life is not that we are more crafty or more keen-eyed. It is simply bec

"To come back to this young man, I half suspect he has formed an attac

nything wrong i

of unhappiness. Who is to say how Trafford's family would like the

o implicitly on your discretion. I will tell you what was intrusted to me a

endrick? without even

I cannot now explain this more fully, but it is enough if you understand that he is entirely dependent on his father. When I came to know this, and when I saw that he was becoming desperately in love, I insisted on this appeal to his friends before he either entangled Lucy in a

nswer has h

ve heard through either of them; but no letter h

a grave motion of his he

are great folk in their own country. Trafford was a strong place in Saxon times. The

Lendrick, quiet and simple

orse. Who is to give way?

elled more time, more consideration. Fathers and mothers are prudently averse to these loves a

must either desert her or marry her against the feeling of his family. Let us have

l dense hedge of laurels, and flanked on the other by a low wall, over which the view

yesterday?" asked Sir Brook, poin

t see Holy Isl

in face and figure, but her manner; the very tone of her voice was like; and then that half-caressing, half-timid way she has in

are you s

all her Lucy, and she laughingly begged me not to retract it, but so to call her always." For some minutes he was silent, and then resumed: "I don't know if you ever heard of a Colonel Frank Dillon, who served on Napier's staff in Scinde. Fiery Frank was his nickname among his comrades, but it only applied to him on the field of battle, and with an enemy in front. Then he was indeed fiery,-the excitement rose to almost madness, and led him to acts of almost incredible daring. At Meanee he was nearly cut to pieces, and as he lay wounded, and to all appearance dying, he received a lance-woun

doing better, I hope. The breezy climate up here soon set you up.' 'Familiar enough this, sir,' cried Dillon, in his own stern voice; 'but without time to breathe, as it were,-before almost I had exchanged a greeting with him,-he entered upon the object of his journey. I scarcely heard a word he said; I knew its purport,-I could mark the theme,-but no more. It was not the fellow himself that filled my mind; my whole thoughts were upon my daughter, and I went on repeating to myself, "Good heavens! is this Lucy's choice? Am I in a trance? Is it this contemptible cur (for he was a cur, sir) that has won the affections of my darling, high-hearted, generous girl? Is the romantic spirit that I have so loved to see in her to bear no better fruit than this? Does the fellow realize to her mind the hero that fills men's thoughts?" I was so overcome, so excited, so confused, Brook, that I begged him to leave me for a while, that one of my attacks of pain was coming on, and that

had made themselves deeply felt on his chance of recovery. It only needed a great shock to depr

ve me. The reserve-it was positive coldness-with which Dillon had always treated Sewell had caused a certain distance, for the first time in their lives, between the father and daughter. She thought, naturally enough, that her father was unjust; that, unaccustomed to the new tone of manners which had grown up amongst young men,-their greater ease, their less

their vanity, and selfish men laughed at for their selfishness, and close men for their avarice; but there is a combination of vanity, egotism, small craftiness, and self-preservation in certain fellows that is totally repugnant to all companionship. Their lives are a series of petty successes, not owing to any superior

rewd fellows, with a keen eye to their own interests. When, however, the weight of any misfortune comes, when the time arrives

an assist the daughter of my oldest friend. The gallant Captain did not balk my good intentions. He first accepted, he then borrowed, and last of all he forged my name. I paid the bills and saved him, not for his sake, I need not tell you, but for hers, who threw herself at my feet, and implored me not to see them ruined. Ev

she passed me when we met without a recognition. This was the hardest blow of all. I tri

et, till I saw, I did not believe there was a new pang of misery my heart had not tasted. What? it is incredible,-surely that is not she who once was Lucy Dillon,-that bold-faced woman with lustrous eyes and rouged cheeks,-brilliant, indeed, and beautiful, but not the beauty that is allied to the thought of virtue,-whose every look is a wile, whose every action is entanglement. She

the smart. The wondrous resemblance Miss Lendrick bears to Lucy Dillon renews to my memory the bright days of her early beauty, when her poor father would call her to sit down at his feet and read to him, that he might gaze at will on her, weaving whole histories of future happiness and joy for her. 'Is it not like sunshine in the room to s

and how we even like to name old names, to cheat ourselves back into the past. So it is that I feel when I see this girl. The other Lucy was once as my daughter; so, too, do I regard her, and with this comes that dreadful sorrow I have told you of, giving my interest in her an intensity unspeakable. When I saw Trafford's attention t

ed the vicar, as his serva

e drawing-room, sir, wants

e old man, bowing low. "I 'l

legram to call him to his regiment. He suspects something has gone wrong; and