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310 be revealed to any one. And mysteries were not excluded even from a love so ill-placed, and seemingly so transitory, as hers.

Lucy's answer touched the Squire in his weak point. "A man of decidedly low origin," he confessed, was utterly out of the question; nevertheless, the young man showed a great deal of candour in his disclosure. He readily promised never to broach a subject necessarily so unpleasant; and though he sighed as he finished his speech, yet the extreme quiet of Lucy's manner re-assured him, and when he perceived that she resumed, though languidly, her wonted avocations, he felt but little doubt of her soon overcoming the remembrance of what he hoped was but a girlish and fleeting fancy. He yielded with avidity to her proposal to return to Warlock; and in the same week as that in which Lucy had received her lover's mysterious letter, the father and daughter commenced their journey home.