Well knowing her brother's impatience of anything like restricted liberty, and how rapidly he would connect such an injunction as this with a life of servitude and endurance, Lucy took care to make the time of receiving him appear a matter of her own choice and convenience, and at the time of parting would say, “Good-bye till Tuesday, Tom; don't forget Tuesday, for we shall be sure to be alone and to ourselves.” He the more easily believed this, that on these same Tuesdays the whole place seemed deserted and desolate. The grave-looking man in black, who preceded him up the stairs, ushered him along the corridor, and finally announced him, awaited him like a piece of machinery, repeating every movement and gesture with an unbroken uniformity, and giving him to understand that not only his coming was expected, but all the details of his reception had been carefully prescribed and determined on. “As I follow that fellow along the passage, Lucy,” said Tom, one day, “I can't help thinking that I experience every sensation of a man going to be hanged,--his solemn face, his measured tread, the silence, and the gloom,--only needing pinioned arms to make the illusion perfect.” “Tie them around me, dearest Tom,” said she, laughing, and drawing him to a seat beside her on the sofa; “and remember,” added she, “you have a long day. Your sentence will not come off for another week;” and thus jestingly did she contrive to time his coming without ever letting him know the restrictions that defined his visits. Now, the day before this conversation between Sir Brook and Tom took place being a Tuesday, Lucy had watched long and anxiously for his coming. She knew he had gone down to Killaloe on the preceding Saturday, but he had assured her he would be back and be with her by Tuesday. Lucy's life was far from unhappy, but it was one of unbroken uniformity, and the one sole glimpse of society was that meeting with her brother, whose wayward thoughts and capricious notions imparted to all he said a something striking and amusing. He usually told her how his week had been passed,--where he had been and with whom,--and she had learned to know his companions, and ask after them by name. Her chief interest was, however, about Sir Brook, from whom Tom usually brought a few lines, but always in an unsealed envelope, inscribed, “By the favor of Mr. Lendrick, jun.”