of the slightest sounds, which formerly reached my ears as unheeded as they now approach yours. Necessity is a stern, but an excellent school-mistress, and she that has lost her sight must collect her information from other sources."
"Well, you hear a man's step, I grant it," said Lucy; "but why, Alice, may it not be my father's?"
"The pace of age, my love, is timid and cautious—the foot takes leave of the earth slowly, and is planted down upon it with hesitation; it is the hasty and determined step of youth that I now hear, and—could I give credit to so strange a thought—I should say it was the step of a Ravenswood."
"This is indeed," said Ravenswood, "an acuteness of organ which I could not have credited had I not witnessed it.—I am indeed the Master of Ravenswood, Alice—the son of your old master."
"You?" said the old woman with almost
