th and breaking her spirit."

Mrs. Morgan, however, with her usual good sense and prudence,
recommended the lively girl to preserve the strictest silence on what
she had seen, and to allow the other servants to find the secret out
for themselves if they could. To-morrow might disclose more, but as at
present they had nothing stronger than suspicion, it would be wrong
to speak of it, and might, besides, be prejudicial to Miss Gourlay's
reputation. Such was the love and respect which all the family felt for
the kind-hearted and amiable Lucy, who was the general advocate with
her father when any of them had incurred his displeasure, that on her
account alone, even if dread of Sir Thomas did not loom like a gathering
storm in the background, not one of them ever seemed to notice her
absence, nor did the baronet himself until days had elapsed. On the
morning of the third day he began to think, that perhaps confinement
might have tamed her down into somewhat of a more amenable spirit; and
as he had in the interval taken all necessary steps to secure the
person of the man who robbed him, and offered a large reward for his
apprehension, he felt somewhat satisfied that he had done all that could
be done, and was consequently more at leisure, and also more anxious to
ascertain the temper of mind in which he should find her.

In the meantime, the delicious scandal of the supposed elopement was
beginning to creep abroad, and, in fact, was pretty generally rumored
throughout the redoubtable town of Ballytrain on the morning of the
third or fourth day. Of course, we need scarcely assure our intelligent
readers, that the friends of the parties are the very last to whom such
a scandal would be mentioned, not only because such an office is always
painful, but because every one takes it for granted that they are
already aware of it themselves. In the case before us, such was the
general opinion, and Sir Thomas's silence on the subject was imputed
by some to the natural delicacy of a father in alluding to a subject so
distressing, and by others to a calm, quiet spirit of vengeance, which
he only restrained until circumstances should place him in a condition
to crush the man who had entailed shame and disgrace upon his name and
family.

Such was the state of circumstances upon the third or fourth morning
after Lucy's disappearance, when Sir Thomas called the footman, and
desired him to send Miss Gourlay's maid to him; he wished to speak