h, merely "_pour se
desennuyer_." Stripped to their shirts--in breeches and silk
stockings, with no shoes--the antagonists lunged and glared and
panted, and twice paused for breath by mutual consent, with no further
damage than two slight wounds in Ned's sword-arm.

"Very pretty practice," said Mr. Thornton, coolly taking a pinch of
snuff, and offering his box to Sir Hugh. "I'm in despair at not being
able to oblige you this fine morning."

"Some other time," replied Sir Hugh with a grim smile; "d----ation,"
he added, "Ned's down!"

Sure enough Cousin Edward was on the grass, striving in vain to raise
himself, and gasping out that he "wasn't the least hurt." He had got
it just between the ribs, and was trying to stanch the blood with a
delicate laced handkerchief, in a corner of which, had he examined it
closely, Sir Hugh would have found embroidered the well-known name of
"Lucy." Poor Cousin Edward! it was all he had belonging to his lost
love, and he would have been unwilling to die without that fragment of
lace in his hand.

"A very promising fencer," remarked Colonel Bludyer, as he wiped his
rapier on the grass. "If he ever gets over it, he won't forget that
"_plongeant_" thrust in tierce. I never knew it fail, Thornton--never,
with a man under thirty." So the Colonel put his coat on, and drove
off to breakfast; while Sir Hugh took charge of Ned Meredith, and as
soon as he was recovered--for his wound was not mortal--carried him
down with him to get thoroughly well at Dangerfield Hall.

It is an old, old story. Love, outraged and set at defiance, bides his
time, and takes his revenge. Dangerfield looked like a different place
now, so thought Lucy; and her spirits rose, and the colour came back
to her cheek, and she even summoned courage to speak without
hesitating to Sir Hugh. When Cousin Edward was strong enough to limp
about the house, it seemed that glimpses of sunshine brightened those
dark oak rooms; and ere he was able to take the air, once more leaning
on Lucy's arm, alas! alas! he had become even dearer to the
impassioned, thoughtful woman than he ever was to the timid,
vacillating girl. There was an addition now to the party on the
terrace in the bright autumn mornings, but the little boy needed no
longer to ask mamma "what she was thinking of;" and the three would
have seemed to a careless observer a happy family party--husband,
wife, and child. Oh that it could but have been so!

In the meantime S