e. Unless you can persuade mamma out. Lionel, you will
tell mamma about this. She must be told."

As Lionel crossed the hall on his return, the door was being opened; the
Verner's Pride carriage had just driven up. Lady Verner had seen it from
the window of the ante-room, and her eyes spoke her displeasure.

"Lionel, what brings _that_ here?"

"I told them to bring it for Decima. I thought you would prefer that
Miss Tempest should be met with that rather than with a hired one."

"Miss Tempest will know soon enough that I am too poor to keep a
carriage," said Lady Verner. "Decima may use it if she pleases. I would
not."

"My dear mother, Decima will not be able to use it. She cannot go to the
station. She has hurt her foot."

"How did she do that?"

"She was on a chair in the store-room, looking in the cupboard. She----"

"Of course; that's just like Decima!" crossly responded Lady Verner.
"She is everlastingly at something or other, doing half the work of a
servant about the house."

Lionel made no reply. He knew that, but for Decima, the house would be
less comfortable than it was for Lady Verner; and that what Decima did,
she did in love.

"Will you go to the station?" he inquired.

"I! In this cold wind! How can you ask me, Lionel? I should get my face
chapped irretrievably. If Decima cannot go, you must go alone."

"But how shall I know Miss Tempest?"

"You must find her out," said Lady Verner. "Her mother was as tall as a
giantess; perhaps she is the same. Is Decima much hurt?"

"She thinks it is only a sprain. We have sent for Jan."

"For Jan! Much good he will do!" returned Lady Verner, in so
contemptuous a tone as to prove she had no very exalted opinion of Mr.
"Jan's" abilities.

Lionel went out to the carriage, and stepped in. The footman did not
shut the door. "And Miss Verner, sir?"

"Miss Verner is not coming. The railway station. Tell Wigham to drive
fast, or I shall be late."

"My lady wouldn't let Miss Decima come out in it," thought Wigham to
himself, as he drove on.

CHAPTER XI.

LUCY TEMPEST.

The words of my lady, "as tall as a giantess," unconsciously influenced
the imagination of Lionel Verner. The train was steaming into the
station at one end as his carriage stopped at the other. Lionel leaped
from it, and mingled with the bustle of the platform.

Not very much bustle, either; and it would have been less, but that
Deerham Station was the nearest approach, as y