 what) holding my hands, all the while, fast in his. I pulled them away at last; he rose, and clasping me round the waist, would have forced a kiss; I screamed out, and he turned from me.
"What's the matter?" said Mrs. Boothby, who then entered the room; "a mouse running across the carpet, frightened Miss Lucy," answered sir Thomas; I could not speak, but I sat down on the sofa, and had almost fainted. Sir Thomas brought me some wine and water, and pressed my hand, whispered, that he hoped I would forgive an offence which was already too much punished by its effects: but he looked so, while he spoke this!
Oh! Mrs. Wistanly, with what regret do I now recollect the days of peaceful happiness I have passed in your little dwelling, when we were at Sindall-Park. I remember I often wished, like other foolish girls, to be a woman; methinks I would now gladly return to the state of harmless infancy I then neglected to value. I am but ill made for encountering difficulty or danger; yet I fear my path is surrounded with both
Could you receive me again under your roof? there is something hallowed resides beneath it. —Yet this may not now be so convenient — I know not what to say — here I am miserable. Write to me, I intreat you, as speedily as may be You never yet denied me your advice or assistance; and never before were they so necessary to your faithful
LUCY SINDALL.
To this letter Miss Sindall received no answer; in truth it never reached Mrs. Wistanly, the servant, to whom she entrusted its conveyance, having, according to instructions he had received, delivered it into the hands of his master, sir Thomas Sindall. She

concluded, therefore, either that Mrs. Wistanly found herself unable to assist her in her present distress, or, what she imagined more probable, that age had now weakened her faculties so much, as to render her callous even to that feeling which should have pitied it.
She next turned her thoughts upon Miss Walton, the manner of her getting acquainted with whom, I have related in the fifth chapter of this volume; but she learned, that Mr. Walton had▪ a few days before, set out with his daughter on a journey to the continent, to which he had been advised by her physicians, as she had, for some time past, been threatened with symptoms of a consumptive disorder. These circumstances, and sir Thomas
