nearer God."

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Note 1. "Vuesa merced," the epithet of ordinary courtesy, is literally
"Your Grace."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A SPOKE IN THE WHEEL.

"All the foolish work
Of fancy, and the bitter close of all."

_Tennyson_.

A few weeks after that conversation, Lucrece Enville sat alone in the
bedroom which she shared with her sister Margaret. She was not shedding
tears--it was not her way to weep: but her mortification was bitter
enough for any amount of weeping.

Lucrece was as selfish as her step-mother, or rather a shade more so.
Lady Enville's selfishness was pure love of ease; there was no
deliberate malice in it. Any person who stood in her way might be
ruthlessly swept out of it; but those who did not interfere with her
pleasure, were free to pursue their own.

The selfishness of Lucrece lay deeper. She not only sought her own
enjoyment and aggrandisement; but she could not bear to see anything--
even if she did not want it--in the possession of some one else. That
was sufficient to make Lucrece long for it and plot to acquire it,
though she had no liking for the article in itself, and would not know
what to do with it when she got it.

But in this particular instance she had wanted the article: and she had
missed it. True, the value which she set upon it was rather for its
adjuncts than for itself; but whatever its value, one thought was
uppermost, and was bitterest--she had missed it.

The article was Don Juan. His charm was twofold: first, he would one
day be a rich man and a noble; and secondly, Blanche was in possession.
Lucrece tried her utmost efforts to detach him from her sister, and to
attach him to herself. And Don Juan proved himself to be her match,
both in perseverance and in strategy.

Blanche had not the faintest suspicion that anything of the sort had
been going on. Don Juan himself had very quickly perceived the
counterplot, and had found it a most amusing episode in the little drama
with which he was beguiling the time during his forced stay in England.

But nobody else saw either plot or counterplot, until one morning, when
a low soft voice arrested Sir Thomas as he was passing out of the garden
door.

"Father, may I have a minute's speech of you?"

"Ay so, Lucrece? I was about to take a turn or twain in the garden;
come with me, lass."

"So better, Father, for that I must say lacketh no