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Rh and witness your complete triumph, even though it will be necessary to leave you the very next morning."

"So soon!" cried Lucy.

"So soon!" echoed the uncle with a smile; "how good you are to speak thus to an old valetudinarian, whose company must have fatigued you to death; nay, no pretty denials! But the great object of my visit to this place is accomplished: I have seen you, I have witnessed your debût in the great world, with, I may say, more than a father's exultation, and I go back to my dry pursuits with the satisfaction of thinking our old and withered genealogical tree has put forth one blossom worthy of its freshest day."

"Uncle!" said Lucy, reprovingly, and holding up her taper finger with an arch smile, mingling with a blush, in which the woman's vanity spoke unknown to herself.

"And why that look, Lucy?" said Brandon.

"Because—because—well, no matter! you have been bred to that trade in which, as you say yourself, men tell untruths for others, till they lose all truth for themselves. But, let us talk