ong."

"I suppose your delays were unavoidable," she answered.

"Yes--in a measure. I should not have come now, but for the relieving
you of Lucy. Your letters, for some time past, have appeared to imply
that you were vexed with her, or tired of her; and, in truth, I have
taxed your patience and good nature unwarrantably. I do not know how I
shall repay your kindness, Lady Verner."

"I have been repaid throughout, Sir Henry," was the quiet reply of Lady
Verner. "The society of Lucy has been a requital in full. I rarely form
an attachment, and when I do form one it is never demonstrative; but I
have learned to love Lucy as I love my own daughter, and it will be a
real grief to part with her. Not but that she has given me great
vexation."

"Ah! In what way?"

"The years have gone on and on since she came to me; and I was in hopes
of returning her to you with some prospect in view of the great end of
a young lady's life--marriage. I was placed here as her mother; and I
felt more responsibility in regard to her establishment in life than I
did to Decima's. We have been at issue upon the point, Sir Henry; Lucy
and I."

Sir Henry turned his eyes on his daughter: if that is not speaking
figuratively, considering that he had scarcely taken his eyes off her. A
fair picture she was, sitting there in her white evening dress and her
pearl ornaments. Young, lovely, girlish, she looked, as she did the
first day she came to Lady Verner's and took up her modest seat on the
hearth-rug. Sir Henry Tempest had not seen many such faces as that; he
had not met with many natures so innocent and charming. Lucy was made to
be admired as well as loved.

"If there is one _parti_ more desirable than another in the whole
county, it is Lord Garle," resumed Lady Verner. "The eldest son of the
Earl of Elmsley, his position naturally renders him so; but had he
neither rank nor wealth, he would not be much less desirable. His looks
are prepossessing; his qualities of head and heart are admirable; he
enjoys the respect of all. Not a young lady for miles round but--I
will use a vulgar phrase, Sir Henry, but it is expressive of the
facts--would jump at him. Lucy refused him."

"Indeed," replied Sir Henry, gazing at Lucy's glowing face, at the smile
that hovered round her lips.

Lady Verner resumed--

"She refused him in the most decidedly positive manner that you can
imagine. She has refused also one or two others. They were not so
desirable