wels in her hair, and an aching
heart in her bosom. Nevertheless, she determined to do her duty as a
wife; and every hour of the day she resolved _not_ to think of Cousin
Edward.

Years elapsed, and pretty Lucy became a gentle, handsome
woman--kindly, courteous, and beloved by all, timid, and shrinking
only with Sir Hugh. Her husband, wearied and discontented, mixed
himself fiercely in all the intrigues of the day--became a staunch
partisan of the House of Stuart, and sought for excitement abroad in
proportion as he missed congeniality of feeling at home. It was an
unhappy household. Their one child was the mother's sole consolation;
she scarcely ever let it out of her presence. They were a pretty
sight, that loving couple, as they basked in the sun of a fine
summer's morning on the terrace in front of the manor-house. The boy,
with his mother's blue eyes and his own golden curls and the arch,
merry smile that he never got from stern Sir Hugh; and the fair,
graceful woman, with her low, white brow and her soft brown hair and
her quiet gestures and gentle sorrowing face--that face that haunts
poor Cousin Edward still.

"Mamma!" says the urchin, pouting his rosy lips, "why don't you play
with me?--what are you thinking of?" and a shade passes over that kind
face, and she blushes, though there is no one with her but the child,
and catches him up and smothers him in kisses, and says "_You_, my
darling;" but, nevertheless, I do not think at that moment she was
thinking either of her boy or Sir Hugh.

And where was Cousin Edward all the time? Why, at that particular
instant, sword-point to sword-point with Colonel Bludyer of the
Dragoons, slightly wounded in two places--cool and wary, and seeming
to enjoy, with a sort of fierce pleasure, such a safety-valve for
excitement as a duel with one of the best fencers in Europe.

Cousin Edward was an altered man since he stood with the future Lady
Horsingham in the moonlight. "An evil counsellor is despair;" and he had
hugged that grim adviser to his heart. He had grown handsomer, indeed,
than ever; but the wild eye, the haggard brow, and the deep lines about
his mouth spoke of days spent in fierce excitement--nights passed in
reckless dissipation. He had never forgotten Lucy through it all, but
even her image only goaded him to fresh extravagances--anything to deaden
the sting of remembrance--anything to efface the maddening past. So
Cousin Edward too became a Jacobite; and was