A
profligate, a gambler--ruined alike in fortune, hope, and reputation, he
was yet her only guardian and protector. The village in which we both
resided was near London; there Mr. D---- had a small cottage, where he
left his daughter and his slender establishment for days, and
sometimes for weeks together, while he was engaged in equivocal
speculations--giving no address, and engaged in no professional mode of
life. Lucy's mother had died long since, of a broken heart--(that fate,
too, was afterwards her daughter's)--so that this poor girl was
literally without a monitor or a friend, save her own innocence--and,
alas! innocence is but a poor substitute for experience. The lady with
whom I had met her had known her mother, and she felt compassion for the
child. She saw her constantly, and sometimes took her to her own house,
whenever she was in the neighbourhood; but that was not often, and only
for a few days at a time. Her excepted, Lucy had no female friend.
"One evening we were to meet at a sequestered and lonely part of the
brook's course, a spot which was our usual rendezvous. I waited
considerably beyond the time appointed, and was just going sorrowfully
away when she appeared.
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