"I feared--hem! hem!--that is, I thought he might have been a nearer relation." There was another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford resumed, in a low voice: "Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous if I say that a countenance like hers, once seen, can never be forgotten; and I believe, some years since, I had the honour to see her in London, at the theatre?
It was but a momentary and distant glance that I was then enabled to gain; and yet," he added significantly, "it sufficed!" "I was only once at the theatre while in London, some years ago," said Lucy, a little embarrassed; "and indeed an unpleasant occurrence which happened to my uncle, with whom I was, is sufficient to make me remember it." "Ha! and what was it ?" "Why, in going out of the play-house his watch was stolen by some dexterous pickpocket." "Was the rogue caught ?" asked the stranger.
"Yes; and was sent the next day to Bridewell.

My uncle said he was extremely young, and yet quite hardened.

I remember that I was foolish enough, when I heard of his sentence, to beg very hard that my uncle would intercede for him; but in vain." "Did you, indeed, intercede for him ?" said the stranger, in so earnest a tone that Lucy coloured for the twentieth time that night, without seeing any necessity for the blush.

Clifford continued, in a gayer tone: "Well, it is surprising how rogues hang together.

I should not be greatly surprised if the person who despoiled your uncle were one of the same gang as the rascal who so terrified your worthy friend the doctor.
But is this handsome old place your home ?" "This is my home," answered Lucy; "but it is an old-fashioned, strange place; and few people, to whom it was not endeared by associations, would think it handsome." "Pardon me!" said Lucy's companion, stopping, and surveying with a look of great interest the quaint pile, which now stood close before them; its dark bricks, gable-ends, and ivied walls, tinged by the starry light of the skies, and contrasted by the river, which rolled in silence below.