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262 wintry sun. "There," said Lucy Bertram, pointing them out in the distance, "there is the seat of our ancestors. God knows, my dear brother, I do not covet in your behalf the extensive power which the lords of these ruins are said to have possessed so long, and sometimes to have used so ill. But, O that I might see you in possession of such reliques of their fortune as should give you an honourable independence, and enable you to stretch your hand for the protection of the old and destitute dependants of our family, whom my poor father's death"

"True, my dearest Lucy; and I trust, with the assistance of Heaven, which has so far guided us, and with that of these good friends, whom their own generous hearts have interested in my behalf, such a consummation of my hard adventures is now not unlikely.—But as a soldier, I must look with some interest upon that worm-eaten hold of ragged stone! and if this fellow, who is now in possession, displaces a pebble of it"