Before he came, everything loved me, and I had more things to love
than I could reckon by the hairs of my head. Now I feel I can love
but one, and that one has deserted me. . . . Well, be it so,--
let her perish, let her be anything but mine!--Melmoth.

Early the next morning Sir William Brandon was closeted for a long time
with his niece, previous to his departure to the duties of his office.
Anxious and alarmed for the success of one of the darling projects of his
ambition, he spared no art in his conversation with Lucy, that his great
ingenuity of eloquence and wonderful insight into human nature could
suggest, in order to gain at least a foundation for the raising of his
scheme. Among other resources of his worldly tact, he hinted at Lucy's
love for Clifford; and (though darkly and subtly, as befitting the purity
of the one he addressed) this abandoned and wily person did not scruple
to hint also at the possibility of indulging that love _after_ marriage;
though he denounced, as the last of indecorums, the crime of encouraging
it _before_. This hint, however, fell harmless upon the innocent ear of
Lucy. She did not in the remotest degree comprehend its meaning; she
only, with a glowing cheek and a pouting lip, resented the allusion to a
love which she thought it insolent in any one even to suspect.

When Brandon left the apartment, his brow was clouded, and his eye
absent and thoughtful: it was evident that there had been little in the
conference with his niece to please or content him. Miss Brandon herself
was greatly agitated; for there was in her uncle's nature that silent and
impressive secret of influencing or commanding others which almost so
invariably and yet so quietly attains the wishes of its owner; and Lucy,
who loved and admired him sincerely,--not the less, perhaps, for a
certain modicum of fear,--was greatly grieved at perceiving how rooted in