THE LANSBYS OF LANSBY HALL. 93 



— family broken — hearth left desolate— deserted by my own 

 children, and supplanted in my own ancestral halls by a purse- 

 proud, insulting villain, who" — 



" No, not a villain, dear father, not a villain" — 



** Yes madam, a villain ; I say a proud, presumptuous, insen- 

 sible villain. What ! and is Francis Lansby still master of that 

 silly heart ? I charged you long ago to dismiss him from your 

 thoughts. Julia Lansby, why have you not obeyed me?" 



" I /ittve obeyed you, father, in all things possible. I have 

 submitted without a murmur to your commands. I have given 

 you my promise never to speak to him, to write to him, to hear 

 of him or from him, without your consent; and till this extraor- 

 dinary occurrence, I knew not whether he was in England, or 

 whether he was alive or dead." 



" And he thinks by coming down hither, and overpowering us 

 with his wealth and splendour, to make us regret having rejected 

 the alliance of so mighty an individual as Mr. Francis Lansby 

 Merivale. O, had my son but lived, my noble, handsome Harry" 

 ■ — Sir Walter put his hands before his eyes on saying this, and 

 leaned back in his chair, as if overcome by the bitterness of his 

 retiections. And Julia was in hopes that the irritation of his 

 temper, which had lately increased to a most distressing extent, 

 would be soothed by the indulgence of his grief. But she was 

 mistaken. Again, with the same cold, sarcastic sneer, he turned 

 towards his daughter, and said, " Your meekness and resignation 

 are truly amiable — your love to your father is so sincere — your 



gratitude for all his goodness to you unbounded He has 



squandered away his fortune, and sunk the haughty lady of 

 Lansby Hall into the inmate of no loftier a dwelling than this, — 

 you must be grateful to him for having saved you from the perils 

 of wealth. He has charged you, and now still more solemnly 

 than ever charges you, to banish from your remembrance, or to 

 remember only with scorn and loathing, the wretch who hath 

 risen upon our ruins, who looks on us, gracious heavens, perhaps 

 with pity, but no — villain as is, he dares not to insult us with 

 his pity," 



" What — what has he done to deserve your anger ? He thinks 

 of you, I will answer for him, only as the friend and benefactor 

 of his youth." She paused, and then added, with a tone of 

 touching and solemn dignity — " Francis Lansby thinks of you 

 as MY father." 



