his mind; and he returned an evasive answer. He never
willingly recalled her: or it: if they obtruded themselves on his
memory--as they very often did--he drove them away, as he was driving
them now.

He quitted the house, and Lady Verner proceeded upstairs to Decima's
room--that pretty room, with its blue panels and hangings, where Lionel
used to be when he was growing convalescent. Decima and Lucy were in it
now. "I wish you to go out with me to make a call," she said to them.

"Both of us, mamma?" inquired Decima.

"Both," repeated Lady Verner. "It is a call of etiquette," she added, a
sound of irony mixing in the tone, "and, therefore, you must both make
it. It is to Lionel's chosen wife."

A hot flush passed into the face of Lucy Tempest; hot words rose to her
lips. Hasty, thoughtless, impulsive words, to the effect that _she_
could not pay a visit to the chosen wife of Lionel Verner.

But she checked them ere they were spoken. She turned to the window,
which had been opened to the early spring day, and suffered the cool air
to blow on her flushed face, and calmed down her impetuous thoughts. Was
_this_ the course of conduct that she had marked out for herself? She
looked round at Lady Verner and said, in a gentle tone, that she would
be ready at any hour named.

"We will go at once," replied Lady Verner. "I have ordered the carriage.
The sooner we make it--as we have to make it--the better."

There was no mistake about it. Lucy had grown to love Lionel Verner.
_How_ she loved him, esteemed him, venerated him, none, save her own
heart, could tell. Her days had been as one long dream of Eden. The very
aspect of the world had changed. The blue sky, the soft-breathing wind,
the scent of the budding flowers, had spoken a language to her, never
before learned: "Rejoice in us, for we are lovely!" It was the strange
bliss in her own heart that threw its rose hues over the face of nature,
the sweet, mysterious rapture arising from love's first dream; which can
never be described by mortal pen; and never, while it lasts, can be
spoken of by living tongue. _While it lasts_. It never does last. It is
the one sole ecstatic phase of life, the solitary romance stealing in
once, and but once, amidst the world's hard realities; the "fire filched
for us from heaven." Has it to arise yet for you--you, who read this? Do
not trust it when it comes, for it will be fleeting as a summer cloud.
Enjoy it, revel in it while you hold