344 THE SMUGGLER. 



announced that the horses and the servant were ready, " that 

 you took Sir Edward to the north, when you went over to 

 your uncle's. You had better, therefore, in returning, for I 

 know, in your wild spirits, when once on horseback, you will 

 not be contented with the straight road, you had better, I 

 say, come by the south-west." 



" Oh I papa, I could never learn the points of the compass 

 in my life I" answered Zara, laughing; "I suppose that is the 

 reason why, as my aunt says, I steer so ill.'' 



"I mean, by the lower road," replied her father; and he 

 laid such emphasis on the words, that Zara received them as 

 a command. 



They mounted and set out, much to the surprise of Mrs. 

 Barbara Croyland, who saw them from the window, and 

 thence derived her first information of their intended expedi- 

 tion; for Zara was afraid of her aunt's kindnesses, and never 

 encountered them when she could help it. When they were a 

 hundred yards from the house, the conversation began ; but I 

 will not enter into all the details ; for at first they related to 

 facts with which the reader is already well acquainted. Sir 

 Edward Digby told her at large, all that had passed between 

 himself and Lay ton on the preceding day, and Zara, in return, 

 informed him of the message she had received from his friend, 

 and how it had been conveyed. Their minds then turned to 

 other things, or rather to other branches of the same subjects ; 

 and, what was to be done? was the next question; for hours 

 were flying. The moment that was to decide the fate of the 

 two beings in whom each felt a deep though separate interest, 

 was approaching fast; and no progress had apparently been 

 made. 



Zara's feelings seemed as much divided as Edith's had been. 

 She shrank from the thought, that her sister, whom she loved 

 with a species of adoration, should sacrifice herself on any ac- 

 count to such a fate as that which must attend the wife of 

 Richard Radford. She shrank also, as a young, generous 

 woman's heart must ever shrink, from the thought of any one 

 wedding the abhorred, and separating for ever from the be- 

 loved; but then, when she came to turn her eyes towards her 

 father, she trembled for him as much as for Edith ; and, with 

 her two hands resting on the pommel of the saddle, she gazed 

 down in anxious and bitter thought. 



