“Madam,” said Lucy, with unwonted energy, “urge me no farther; if this unhappy engagement be restored, I have already said you shall dispose of me as you will; till then I should commit a heavy sin in the sight of God and man in doing what you require.”  “But, my love, if this man remains obstinately silent——­”

“He will not be silent,” answered Lucy; “it is six weeks since I sent him a double of my former letter by a sure hand.”

“You have not—­you could not—­you durst not,” said Lady Ashton, with violence inconsistent with the tone she had intended to assume; but instantly correcting herself, “My dearest Lucy,” said she, in her sweetest tone of expostulation, “how could you think of such a thing?”

“No matter,” said Bucklaw; “I respect Miss Ashton for her sentiments, and I only wish I had been her messenger myself.”

“And pray how long, Miss Ashton,” said her mother, ironically, “are we to wait the return of your Pacolet—­your fairy messenger—­since our humble couriers of flesh and blood could not be trusted in this matter?”

“I have numbered weeks, days, hours, and minutes,” said Miss Ashton; “within another week I shall have an answer, unless he is dead.  Till that time, sir,” she said, addressing Bucklaw, “let me be thus far beholden to you, that you will beg my mother to forbear me upon this subject.”

“I will make it my particular entreaty to Lady Ashton,” said Bucklaw.  “By my honour, madam, I respect your feelings; and, although the prosecution of this affair be rendered dearer to me than ever, yet, as I am a gentleman, I would renounce it, were it so urged as to give you a moment’s pain.”

“Mr. Hayston, I think, cannot comprehend that,” said Lady Ashton, looking pale with anger, “when the daughter’s happiness lies in the bosom of the mother.  Let me ask you, Miss Ashton, in what terms your last letter was couched?”

“Exactly in the same, madam,” answered Lucy, “which you dictated on a former occasion.”

“When eight days have elapsed, then,” said her mother, resuming her tone of tenderness, “we shall hope, my dearest love, that you will end this suspense.”

“Miss Ashton must not be hurried, madam,” said Bucklaw, whose bluntness of feeling did not by any means arise from want of good-nature; “messengers may be stopped or delayed.  I have known a day’s journey broke by the casting of a foreshoe.  Stay, let me see my calendar:  the twentieth day from this is St. Jude’s, and the day before I must be at Caverton Edge, to see the match between the Laird of Kittlegirth’s black mare and Johnston the meal-monger’s four-year-old-colt; but I can ride all night, or Craigie can bring me word how the match goes; and I hope, in the mean time, as I shall not myself distress Miss Ashton with any further importunity, that your ladyship yourself, and Sir William, and Colonel Douglas will have the goodness to allow her uninterrupted time for making up her mind.”