sacrifice until that at which we have
arrived in this narrative. Since that moment of unutterable anguish her
spirits completely abandoned her. Naturally healthy she had ever been,
but now she began to feel what the want of it meant; a feeling which to
her, as the gradual precursor of death, and its consequent release from
sorrow, brought something like hope and consolation. Yet this was not
much; for we know that to the young heart entering upon the world of
life and enjoyment, the prospect of early dissolution, no matter by what
hopes or by what resignation supported, is one so completely at variance
with the mysterious gift of existence and the natural tenacity with
which we cling to it, that, like the drugs which we so reluctantly take
during illness, its taste upon the spirit is little else than bitterness
itself. Lucy's appetite failed her; she could not endure society, but
courted solitude, and scarcely saw any one, unless, indeed, her
father occasionally, and her maid Alley Mahon, when her attendance
was necessary. She became pale as a shadow, began to have a wasted
appearance, and the very fountains of her heart seemed to have dried
up, for she found it impossible to shed a tear. A dry, cold, impassive
agony, silent, insidious, and exhausting, appeared to absorb the very
elements of life, and reduce her to a condition of such physical and
morbid incapacity as to feel an utter inability, or at all events
disinclination, to complain.

Her father's interviews with her were not frequent. That worthy man,
however, looked upon all her sufferings as the mere pinings of a
self-willed girl, lovesick and sentimental, such as he had sometimes
heard of, or read in books, and only worthy to be laughed at and treated
with contempt. He himself was now progressing in an opposite direction,
so far as health was concerned, to that of his daughter. In other words,
as she got ill, he gradually, and with a progress beautifully adapted
to the accomplishment of his projects, kept on recovering. This fact was
Lucy's principal, almost her sole consolation; for here, although she
had sacrificed herself, she experienced the satisfaction of seeing that
the sacrifice was not in vain.

But, after all, and notwithstanding his base and ungodly views of
life, let us ask, had the baronet no painful visitations of remorse in
contemplating the fading form and the silent but hopeless agony of his
daughter? Did conscience, which in his bosom of st