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264 "Fear not," said Mr. Clifford, laughing gaily, "I am too great a traveller to make that hope a matter of impossibility.—Take care, Madam—one step more."

The night was calm and tolerably clear, though the moon had not yet risen, as Lucy and her companion passed through the fields, with the servant preceding them at a little distance with the lantern.

After a pause of some length, Clifford said, with a little hesitation, "Is Miss Brandon related to the celebrated barrister of her name?"

"He is my uncle," said Lucy; "do you know him?"

"Only your uncle?" said Clifford, with vivacity, and evading Lucy's question—"I feared—hem!—hem!—that is, I thought he might have been a nearer relation." There was another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford resumed, in a low voice, "Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous if I say, that a countenance like her's, once seen, can never be forgotten; and I believe, some years since, I had the honour to see her in