a is likely to settle in
England."

"Yes, indeed. That was the second thing I wanted to speak to you about."

"They are engaged, I suppose?"

"Yes; it has been the wish of my heart for years. Maurice is like a son
to me."

They discussed the matter in its more commonplace aspect. The wealth and
position of the bridegroom elect were points as to which Mr. Wynter felt
it his business to inquire, and when he found these so satisfactory, he
congratulated his cousin with great cordiality, and plainly expressed
his opinion that delays in such a case were useless and objectionable.
He liked Lucia, and admired her, and thought, too, that there would be
no better way of blotting out the remembrance of the mother's
unfortunate marriage than by a prosperous one on the part of the
daughter.

Meantime Mrs. Wynter sat in an easy-chair by her dressing-table, and her
daughter was curled up on the floor near her.

"Well, mamma," Miss Wynter said, "you see I was right. I knew perfectly
well that there must be some romance at the bottom of it all."

"You were very wise, my dear."

"And, mamma, if I had seen Lucia, I should have been still more sure.
Why, she is perfectly lovely! I hope she will let me be her bridesmaid."

"Tiny, you know I don't approve of your talking in that way."

"What way, mamma? Of course, they are going to be married. Anybody can
see that."

"If they are, no doubt we shall hear in good time."

"And I am sure, if either of us were to marry half as well, the whole
house would be in a flutter. I mean to be very good friends with Lucia,
and then, perhaps, she will invite me to go and see her. And I _must_ be
her bridesmaid, because I am her nearest relation; and she can't have
any friends in England, and I shall make her let me have a white dress
with blue ribbons."

Mrs. Wynter still reproved, but she smiled, too; and Tiny being a
spoiled child, needed no greater encouragement. She stopped in her
mother's room until she heard Mr. Wynter coming, when she fled,
dishevelled, to her own, and dropped asleep, to dream of following Lucia
up the aisle of an impossible church, dressed in white with ribbons of
_bleu de ciel_.

Lucia perhaps had said to herself also that she meant to be good friends
with Tiny. At all events, the two girls did get on excellently together;
before the week which the Wynters spent in London was at an end, they
had discussed as much of Lucia's love story as she was disposed to tell,