ck at the door, and Lady Mabel's
maid, putting her head in, declared that my Lord had come in and
had already been some time in his dressing-room. "Good-bye, Lord
Silverbridge," she said quite gaily, and rather more aloud than would
have been necessary, had she not intended that the maid also should
hear her.

"Poor boy!" she said to herself as she was dressing. "Poor boy!"
Then, when the evening was over she spoke to herself again about him.
"Dear sweet boy!" And then she sat and thought. How was it that she
was so old a woman, while he was so little more than a child? How
fair he was, how far removed from conceit, how capable of being made
into a man--in the process of time! What might not be expected from
him if he could be kept in good hands for the next ten years! But in
whose hands? What would she be in ten years, she who already seemed
to know the town and all its belongings so well? And yet she was as
young in years as he. He, as she knew, had passed his twenty-second
birthday,--and so had she. That was all. It might be good for her
that she should marry him. She was ambitious. And such a marriage
would satisfy her ambition. Through her father's fault, and her
brother's, she was likely to be poor. This man would certainly be
rich. Many of those who were buzzing around her from day to day, were
distasteful to her. From among them she knew that she could not take
a husband, let their rank and wealth be what it might. She was too
fastidious, too proud, too prone to think that things should be with
her as she liked them! This last was in all things pleasant to her.
Though he was but a boy, there was a certain boyish manliness about
him. The very way in which he had grasped at her hand and had then
blushed ruby-red at his own daring, had gone far with her. How
gracious he was to look at! Dear sweet boy! Love him? No;--she did
not know that she loved him. That dream was over. She was sure
however that she liked him.

But how would it be with him? It might be well for her to become his
wife, but could it be well for him that he should become her husband?
Did she not feel that it would be better for him that he should
become a man before he married at all? Perhaps so;--but then if she
desisted would others desist? If she did not put out her bait would
there not be other hooks,--others and worse? Would not such a one,
so soft, so easy, so prone to be caught and so desirable for the
catching, be sure to be made prey of