Lucy Austin. 



" and I have been looking for you since two. What will Herman say 

 when he hears of my rudeness in neglecting you so ?" 



I stammered out something about my own forgetfulness and the 

 heat of the day, and requested that I might be permitted to join her 

 on the bridge, so as to avail myself of her experience in viewing the 

 landscape. She assented, but pointed out what I had not before ob- 

 served, that to reach the bridge it would be necessary to re-cross the 

 burial-ground, garden, and library. She proposed, however, to meet 

 me mid-way ; but I, of course, objected. By this time we became 

 aware, that for conversation our relative positions could not be im- 

 proved; and so we continued talking for about twenty minutes. 

 Availing herself of a pause in our colloquy, she turned towards the 

 left, and after a moment's elapse exclaimed joyfully, " Oh, Herman! 

 here's Herman !" 



What in the name of all that is mysterious and inscrutable could 

 have instigated me I know not ; but hardly had the words of the fair 

 speaker reached me when I cried out anxiously, " Is Whip with 

 him ?" By her manner, when she first spoke of Leader's coming, I 

 knew that he must have been at some distance, and was therefore 

 prepared for a brief delay in her answer; but it appeared to me 

 hours of wretchedness before she replied, eagerly looking at me, 

 " Why do you ask so?" 



I heeded her not. A dreadful thought shot through my brain. A 

 sun-stroke seemed to have smitten me, and the next instant I felt as 

 if plunged into an ice-bath. Burying my face in my hands, as if to 

 shut out the horrid phantasm I had conjured up^ I remained absorbed 

 in the hell of my too prophetic imagination, until the loud hilarious 

 laugh of Leader, redolent of gaiety and enjoyment, rang on my ears 

 like the welcomed reprieve to a felon at the gallows' foot. I looked 

 up, and saw Leader on the opposite side of the water within about a 

 hundred yards of the bridge. He was calling to Lucy, and playfully 

 reproaching her with her inability to be audible at the distance he 

 then was. When he saw me he inquired, if I were ill ; but t befor 

 I could answer he made some witty remark on a swan that was 

 pursuing a goose, and laughed at his own smartness. Lucy looked 

 upon him and laughed, because she saw him pleased; and I too 

 would have laughed, but could not. 



As his mirth subsided, a confused sound, as if of many voices 

 shouting in the distance, became faintly audible. I shuddered, with- 

 out being conscious of a reason for doing so. Again the sounds 

 were borne more distinctly on the breeze, and I became faint with 

 emotion. 



" Hush !" said Lucy, at the instant affording a vivid tableau of Re- 

 becca at the turret in the castle scene in Ivanhoe one arm stretched 

 towards me as if to arrest the observation she saw upon my lips, and 

 the other extended in the direction of the noise. 



" Hark !" said Leader, dropping his fowling-piece from its rest 

 upon his arm to the ground. 



A few minutes' silence intervened,when Lucy, whose situation upon 

 the bridge enabled her to see much farther than my friend or myself, 

 again resumed, " Why, they are hunting a poor dog !" 



