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292 handsome features of her lover. So marked was the change that one night seemed to have wrought upon Clifford, that even the Squire was startled and alarmed at it. But Lucy, whose innocent vanity pleased itself with accounting for the alteration, consoled herself with the hope of soon witnessing a very different expression on the countenance of her lover; and though she was silent, and her happiness lay quiet and deep within her, yet in her eyes and lip there was that which seemed to Clifford an insult to his own misery, and stung him to the heart. However, he exerted himself to meet the conversation of the Squire, and to mask as well as he was able the evidence of the conflict which still raged within him.

The morning was wet and gloomy; it was that drizzling and misty rain which is so especially nutritious to the growth of blue devils, and the jolly Squire failed not to rally his young friend upon his feminine susceptibility to the influences of the weather. Clifford replied jestingly, and the jest, if bad, was good enough to content the railer.