Lucy always brought him his pipe, but he never smoked it in the room, thinking it made her cough. And then, after he had finished, he shut down the window, and she drew the white muslin curtain; those who passed and repassed saw their shadows: the girl bending over a large book, and her father seated opposite to her; listening while she read, his elbow placed on the table, and his head resting on his hand. The drapery was so transparent that they could see his sword and sash hanging on the wall above his hat; and the branch of laurel with which Lucy had adorned the looking-glass that morning in commemoration of the battle of Toulouse. Before the sergeant-major went to bed that night he called old Mary, and whispered, “You were quite right about old John Coyne. Lucy never marched better than she did to-day; and her voice, both in reading, and the little hymn she sung, was as strong as a trumpet. I’ll give it well to old John, to-morrow;”—but he never did. The sergeant-major was usually up the first in the house; yet, the next morning, when Mary took hot water to his room she stepped back, seeing he was kneeling, dressed, by his bed side; half an hour passed; she went again. Mr. Joyce had never undressed, never laid upon the bed since it had been turned down; he was dead and cold; his hands clasped in prayer. Some of the vessels of the heart, or head, had given way; the wonderful machine was disturbed; its power destroyed in an instant. Lucy Joyce was now utterly alone in the world; of her father’s relatives she knew little or nothing; her mother was an only child, and her grandmother and grandfather were both dead. A generous and benevolent lady, aware of the circumstance under which she was placed, offered to provide Lucy with a situation;—but what situation? She looked too delicate, too refined for service; and she was not sufficiently accomplished to undertake the duties of even a nursery governess, “Have none of their slavery, dear,” exclaimed poor Mary, while weeping bitterly; “take your pick of the things to furnish two little rooms, Miss Lucy, and sell the rest. I’ve a power of friends, and can get constant work; turn my hand to any thing, from charing to clear-starching, or if the noise wouldn’t bother you, sure I could have a mangle; it would exercise me of on evening when I’d be done work: don’t lave me, Miss, don’t darling, any way, till you gather a little strength after all you’ve gone through; the voice of the stranger is harsh, and the look of the stranger is cold, to those who have lived all their days in the light of a father’s love. I took you from your mother’s breast a wee-some, woe-some, babby, and sure, my jewel own, I have some right to you. I’ll never gainsay you. And to please you, dear, I’ll listen to any chapter you’ll read out of the Book; nor never let the echo even of a white, let alone a black, oath cross my lips.” But Lucy Joyce was too right-minded to live on the labour of an old servant.