but I don't blame her. Only, if you can keep a secret, so can I."

"Pat," said she, "desire the coachman to stop at the white gate, where
two faymales will be waitin' for it, and let the guard come down and
open the door for us; so that we won't have occasion to spake. It's aisy
to know one's voice, Pat."

"I'll manage it all," said Pat; "make your mind aisy--and what is more,
I'll not breathe a syllable to mortual man, woman, or child about it.
That would be an ungrateful return for her kindness to our family. May
God bless her, and grant her happiness, and that's the worst I wish
her."

The baronet, in the course of that evening, was sitting in his
dining-room alone, a bottle of Madeira before him, for indeed it
is necessary to say, that although unsocial and inhospitable, he
nevertheless indulged pretty freely in wine. He appeared moody, and
gulped down the Madeira as a man who wished either to sustain his mind
against care, or absolutely to drown memory, and probably the force of
conscience. At length, with a flushed face, and a voice made more deep
and stern by his potations, and the reflections they excited, he rang
the bell, and in a moment the butler appeared.

"Is Gillespie in the house, Gibson?"

"Yes, sir."

"Send him up."

In a few minutes Gillespie entered; and indeed it would be difficult to
see a more ferocious-looking ruffian than this scoundrel who was groom
to the baronet. Fame, or scandal, or truth, as the case may be, had
settled the relations between Sir Thomas and him, not merely as those of
master and servant, but as those of father and son. Be this as it may,
however, the similarity of figure and feature was so extraordinary, that
the inference could be considered by no means surprising.

"Tom," said the baronet, "I suppose there is a Bible in the house?"

"I can't say, sir," replied the ruffian. "I never saw any one in use. O,
yes, Miss Gourlay has one."

"Yes," replied the other, with a gloomy reflection, "I forgot; she is,
in addition to her other accomplishments, a Bible reader. Well, stay
where you are; I shall get it myself."

He accordingly rose and proceeded to Lucy's chamber, where, after having
been admitted, he found the book he sought, and such was the absence of
mind, occasioned by the apprehensions he felt, that he brought away the
book, and forgot to lock the door.

"Now, sir," said the baronet, sternly, when he returned, "do you respect
this book? It is the Bible.