"Alas!" exclaimed Lucy, still in tears, "how happy might we have been,
had this ambition for my exaltation not existed in my father's heart!"
If Lucy rose with a depressed spirit on that morning of sorrow, so did
not Lord Dunroe. This young nobleman, false and insincere in everything,
had succeeded in inducing his sister to act as brides-maid, Sir Thomas
having asked her consent as a personal compliment to himself and his
daughter. She was told by her brother that young Roberts would act in an
analogous capacity to him; and this he held out as an inducement to her,
having observed something like an attachment between her and the young
ensign. Not that he at all approved of this growing predilection, for
though strongly imbued with all the senseless and absurd prejudices
against humble birth which disgrace aristocratic life and feeling,
he was base enough to overrule his own opinions on the subject, and
endeavor, by this unworthy play upon his sister's feelings, to prevail
upon her to do an act that would throw her into his society, and which,
under any other circumstances, he would have opposed.
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