“I beg you will not trouble yourself any more about the matter,” returned Horton, endeavoring to speak cheerfully. “The worst, I believe, is now over, for the sheriff is already in possession of the place.”
“And your mother?” said Lucy, raising her soft eyes in anxious suspense to his face.
“She has been, and is still ill, but I hope she is gradually becoming more resigned. Transplantation, however, will, I fear, go hard with her.”
“Take care, Norman,” said Lucy, earnestly, “that you bring not severe repentance upon yourself by exposing her to it.”
“But what can I do? I have no alternative. I have left no stone unturned to procure the money; and if a few months had been allowed me, I could easily have obtained it, but this is just the time when everybody’s money is locked up.”
“Mr. Hinckley offered you an alternative,” said Lucy, timidly.
“And is it possible that you can advise me to accept it, Lucy! Can you, who know what it is to love, offer me such advice?”
“Who told you I knew how to love?” asked Lucy, in a tone of extreme alarm.
“I scarcely know whether it is honorable in me to repeat what was told me in confidence, but I had it from Emma Shirley that you had accepted the addresses of Joseph Constant.”
“Then she must have been trying the extent of your credulity,” returned the young girl, with a look of ingenuousness that could not for a moment be doubted, “for she knew very well that he was an object of actual dislike to me.”