Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/321

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PAUL CLIFFORD.
313

discharge those of a niece, and prove that I have forgotten the gratitude of a daughter. Drive on!"

We have said that there were times when a spirit was stricken from Lucy little common to her in general, and now, the command of her uncle sat upon her brow. On sped the horses, and for several minutes Lucy remained silent. Her woman did not dare to speak. At length Miss Brandon turned, and, covering her face with her hands, burst into tears so violent that they alarmed her attendant even more than her previous stillness. "My poor, poor uncle!" she sobbed, and those were all her words!

We must pass over Lucy's arrival at Lord Mauleverer's house,—we must pass over the weary days which elapsed till that unconscious body was consigned to dust with which, could it have yet retained one spark of its haughty spirit, it would have refused to blend its atoms. She had loved the deceased incomparably beyond his merits, and resisting all remonstrance to the contrary, she witnessed, herself, the dreary ceremony which bequeathed the human remains of William Brandon to repose and to the worm. On that same day