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58 Lucy knew not while she listened, half in fear, half in admiration, to her singular relation, that at the very moment he thus spoke his disease was preying upon him in one of its most relentless moods, without the power of wringing from him a single outward token of his torture. But she wanted nothing to encrease her pity and affection for a man who, in consequence, perhaps, of his ordinary surface of worldly, and cool properties of temperament, never failed to leave an indelible impression on all who had ever seen that temperament broken through by deeper, though often by more evil feelings.

"Shall you go to Lady 's rout?" asked Brandon, easily sliding back into common topics—"Lord Mauleverer requested me to ask you."

"That depends on you and my father!" said Lucy.

"If on me, I answer, yes!" said Brandon; "I like hearing Mauleverer, especially among persons who do not understand him; there is a refined and subtle sarcasm running through the common places of his conversation, which cuts the good fools, like the invisible sword in the fable,