As the party approached the brow of the hill, the view of the city below was so striking that there was a general pause for the purpose of survey. One young lady in particular drew forth her pencil, and began sketching, while her mamma looked complacently on, and abstractedly devoured a sandwich. It was at this time, in the general pause, that Clifford and Lucy found themselves--Heaven knows how!--next to each other, and at a sufficient distance from the squire and the rest of the party to feel in some measure alone. There was a silence in both which neither dared to break; when Lucy, after looking at and toying with a flower that she had brought from the place which the party had been to see, accidentally dropped it; and Clifford and herself stooping at the same moment to recover it, their hands met. Involuntarily, Clifford detained the soft fingers in his own; his eyes, that encountered hers, so spell-bound and arrested them that for once they did not sink beneath his gaze; his lips moved, but many and vehement emotions so suffocated his voice that no sound escaped them. But all the heart was in the eyes of each; that moment fixed their destinies. Henceforth there was an era from which they dated a new existence; a nucleus around which their thoughts, their remembrances, and their passions clung. The great gulf was passed; they stood on the same shore, and felt that though still apart and disunited, on that shore was no living creature but themselves! Meanwhile Augustus Tomlinson, on finding himself surrounded by persons eager to gaze and to listen, broke from his moodiness and reserve. Looking full at his next neighbour, and flourishing his right hand in the air, till he suffered it to rest in the direction of the houses and chimneys below, he repeated that moral exclamation which had been wasted on Clifford, with a more solemn and a less passionate gravity than before,--“What a subject, ma'am, for contemplation!” “Very sensibly said, indeed, sir,” said the lady addressed, who was rather of a serious turn. “I never,” resumed Augustus in a louder key, and looking round for auditors,--“I never see a great town from the top of a hill without thinking of an apothecary's shop!” “Lord, sir!” said the lady. Tomlinson's end was gained. Struck with the quaintness of the notion, a little crowd gathered instantly around him, to hear it further developed. “Of an apothecary's shop, ma'am!” repeated Tomlinson. “There lie your simples and your purges and your cordials and your poisons,--all things to heal and to strengthen and to destroy. There are drugs enough in that collection to save you, to cure you all; but none of you know how to use them, nor what medicines to ask for, nor what portions to take; so that the greater part of you swallow a wrong dose, and die of the remedy!” “But if the town be the apothecary's shop, what, in the plan of your idea, stands for the apothecary?” asked an old gentleman, who perceived at what Tomlinson was driving.