Mrs.Warner said he had been a very wicked person when he was young, but he seems good-natured enough now, Papa." "By the by," said the squire, "his lordship has just been made (this new ministry seems very unlike the old, which rather puzzles me; for I think it my duty, d'ye see, Lucy, always to vote for his Majesty's government, especially seeing that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in detecting the gun powder plot; and it is a little odd-at least, at first-to think that good now which one has always before been thinking abominable) Lord Lieutenant of the county." "Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant ?" "Yes, child; and since his lordship is such a friend of my brother, I should think, considering especially what an old family in the county we are,--not that I wish to intrude myself where I am not thought as fine as the rest,--that he would be more attentive to us than Lord -- ------ was; but that, my dear Lucy, puts me in mind of Pillum; and so, perhaps, you would like to walk to the parson's, as it is a fine evening.

John shall come for you at nine o'clock with (the moon is not up then) the lantern." Leaning on his daughter's willing arm, the good old man then rose and walked homeward; and so soon as she had wheeled round his easy-chair, placed the backgammon board on the table, and wished the old gentleman an easy victory over his expected antagonist, the apothecary, Lucy tied down her bonnet, and took her way to the rectory.
When she arrived at the clerical mansion and entered the drawing-room, she was surprised to find the parson's wife, a good, homely, lethargic old lady, run up to her, seemingly in a state of great nervous agitation and crying,-- "Oh, my dear Miss Brandon! which way did you come?
Did you meet nobody by the road?
Oh, I am so frightened! Such an accident to poor dear Dr.
Slopperton! Stopped in the king's highway, robbed of some tithe-money he had just received from Farmer Slowforth! If it had not been for that dear angel, good young man, God only knows whether I might not have been a disconsolate widow by this time!" While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy's eye glancing round the room discovered in an armchair the round and oily little person of Dr.Slopperton, with a countenance from which all the carnation hues, save in one circular excrescence on the nasal member, that was left, like the last rose of summer, blooming alone, were faded into an aspect of miserable pallor.

The little man tried to conjure up a smile while his wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter forth some syllable of unconcern; but he looked, for all his bravado, so exceedingly scared that Lucy would, despite herself, have laughed outright, had not her eye rested upon the figure of a young man who had been seated beside the reverend gentleman, but who had risen at Lucy's entrance, and who now stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air of great respect.

Blushing deeply and involuntarily, she turned her eyes hastily away, and approaching the good doctor, made her inquiries into the present state of his nerves, in a graver tone than she had a minute before imagined it possible that she should have been enabled to command.
"Ah! my good young lady," said the doctor, squeezing her hand, "I--may, I may say the church--for am I not its minister?
was in imminent danger--but this excellent gentleman prevented the sacrilege, at least in great measure.

I only lost some of my dues,--my rightful dues,--for which I console myself with thinking that the infamous and abandoned villain will suffer hereafter." "There cannot be the least doubt of that," said the young man.