I will be the mediator betwixt you--peace and harmony shall once more inhabit our neighbourhood, and----" Bridgenorth interrupted him with a grim smile; for such it seemed, as it passed over a face of deep melancholy.

"My daughter well said, but short while past, that you were a dreamer of dreams--an architect of plans and hopes fantastic as the visions of the night.

It is a great thing you ask of me;--the hand of my only child--the sum of my worldly substance, though that is but dross in comparison.

You ask the key of the only fountain from which I may yet hope to drink one pleasant draught; you ask to be the sole and absolute keeper of my earthly happiness--and what have you offered, or what have you to offer in return, for the surrender you require of me ?" "I am but too sensible," said Peveril, abashed at his own hasty conclusions, "how difficult it may be." "Nay, but interrupt me not," replied Bridgenorth, "till I show you the amount of what you offer me in exchange for a boon, which, whatever may be its intrinsic value, is earnestly desired by you, and comprehends all that is valuable on earth which I have it in my power to bestow.

You may have heard that in the late times I was the antagonist of your father's principles and his profane faction, but not the enemy of his person." "I have ever heard," replied Julian, "much the contrary; and it was but now that I reminded you that you had been his friend." "Ay.