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244 wished the old gentleman an easy victory over his expected antagonist the Apothecary, Lucy tied down her bonnet, and took her way to the Rectory.

When she arrived at the clerical mansion, and entered the drawing-room, she was surprised to find the Parson's wife, a good, homely, lethargic old lady, run up to her, seemingly in a state of great nervous agitation, and crying.

"Oh, my dear Miss Brandon! which way did you come? Did you meet nobody by the road? Oh, I am so frightened! Such an accident to poor dear Doctor Slopperton. Stopped in the King's highway—robbed of some tithe-money he had just received from Farmer Slowforth; if it had not been for that dear angel, good, young man, God only knows whether I might not have been a disconsolate widow by this time."

While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy's eye glancing round the room, discovered in an arm-chair, the round and oily little person of Doctor Slopperton, with a countenance from which all the carnation hues, save in one circular excrescence on the nasal member that was left, like the last rose of summer, blooming