nounced by their names, from the collecting and cleaning of
arms, and the anxious gloom and bustle which seem to agitate every male
in the castle, it may not be impossible for us (always in case matters
be driven to extremity) to shape out some little supplemental conspiracy
of our own. I hope the gentlemen have not kept all the policy to
themselves; and there is one associate that I would gladly admit to our
counsel."

"Not Nancy?"

"O, no!" said Miss Ilderton; "Nancy, though an excellent good girl,
and fondly attached to you, would make a dull conspirator--as dull as
Renault and all the other subordinate plotters in VENICE PRESERVED. No;
this is a Jaffier, or Pierre, if you like the character better; and yet
though I know I shall please you, I am afraid to mention his name to
you, lest I vex you at the same time. Can you not guess? Something
about an eagle and a rock--it does not begin with eagle in English, but
something very like it in Scotch."

"You cannot mean young Earnscliff, Lucy?" said Miss Vere, blushing
deeply.

"And whom else should I mean," said Lucy. "Jaffiers and Pierres are very
scarce in this country, I take it, though one could find Renaults and
Bedamars enow."

"How call you talk so wildly, Lucy? Your plays and romances have
positively turned your brain. You know, that, independent of my father's
consent, without which I never will marry any one, and which, in the
case you point at, would never be granted; independent, too, of our
knowing nothing of young Earnscliff's inclinations, but by your own
vivid conjectures and fancies--besides all this, there is the fatal
brawl!"

"When his father was killed?" said Lucy. "But that was very long ago;
and I hope we have outlived the time of bloody feud, when a quarrel was
carried down between two families from father to son, like a Spanish
game at chess, and a murder or two committed in every generation, just
to keep the matter from going to sleep. We do with our quarrels nowadays
as with our clothes; cut them out for ourselves, and wear them out in
our own day, and should no more think of resenting our fathers' feuds,
than of wearing their slashed doublets and trunk-hose."

"You treat this far too lightly, Lucy," answered Miss Vere.

"Not a bit, my dear Isabella," said Lucy. "Consider, your father, though
present in the unhappy affray, is never supposed to have struck the
fatal blow; besides, in former times, in case of mutual slaughter
between cla