"Mr. Merton was a highly educated man, and Mrs. Merton an accomplished woman--it was their pleasure to teach me, and mine to learn from them." "Accomplished! There stands a harp which has just been tuned by a master for a little concert we are to have this evening. Can you play on it?" Lucy drew the instrument to her and played an overture correctly, yet with less spirit than she would have done had her fingers trembled less. "Can you sing?" Elevated above all apprehension by the indignant pride which this cold and haughty questioning aroused, Lucy changed the music of the overture for a touching air, and, sang, with a rich, full voice, a single stanza of an Italian song. "Italian! Do you understand it?" "I have read it with Mr. Merton." "This is fortunate. I have been for weeks in search of a governess for a friend residing in the country. I will order the carriage and take you there instantly--or stay--return home and put up your clothes. I will send a coach for you." Again Lucy had vanished from Edward Houstoun's world, nor could his most munificent bribes, nor most active cross-examination win any other information from Mrs. Blakely's household, than that "Miss Lucy went away in a carriage"--a carriage whose description presented a _fac simile_ to every hackney-coach. Spite of all her precautions, he suspected his mother; to his consciousness of her want of sympathy with his pursuits, was therefore added a deep sense of injury, and his heart grew sterner, his manner colder and more reserved than ever. Two years more were passed in his studies, and a third in the long delays, the fruitless efforts which mark the entrance on any career of profitable exertion. During all this time, Lady Houstoun was studious to bring around him the loveliest daughters of affluence and rank. Graceful forms flitted through her halls, and the music of sweet voices and the gay laughter of innocent and happy hearts were heard within her rooms, but by all their attractions Edward Houstoun was unmoved. Courteous and bland to all, he never lingered by the side of one--no quick flush, no flashing beam told that even for a passing moment his heart was again awake. Could it be that from all this array of loveliness he was guarded by the memory of her who had stamped the impress of herself on his whole altered being? If the gratification of the man's sterner ambition could have atoned for the disappointment of the youth's dream of love, the shadow of that memory would have passed from his life. Step by step he had risen in the opinions of men, and at length one of the most profound lawyers of the day sought his association with himself in a case of the most intense interest, involving the honor of a lovely and much-wronged woman. His reputation out of the halls of justice had already become such that many thronged the court to hear him. Gallant gentlemen and fair ladies looked down on him from the galleries--but far apart from