his hand to her.

"Good-bye, my lord. Do not be angry with me."

"No, no, no!" and without further speech he left the room and the
house and hurried home. It was hardly surprising that he should that
evening tell his mother that Griselda Grantly would be a companion
sufficiently good for his sister. He wanted no such companion.

And when he was well gone--absolutely out of sight from the
window--Lucy walked steadily up to her room, locked the door, and
then threw herself on the bed. Why--oh! why had she told such
a falsehood? Could anything justify her in a lie? was it not a
lie--knowing as she did that she loved him with all her loving heart?
But, then, his mother! and the sneers of the world, which would have
declared that she had set her trap, and caught the foolish young
lord! Her pride would not have submitted to that. Strong as her
love was, yet her pride was, perhaps, stronger--stronger at any
rate during that interview. But how was she to forgive herself the
falsehood she had told?

CHAPTER XVII

Mrs. Proudie's Conversazione

It was grievous to think of the mischief and danger into which
Griselda Grantly was brought by the worldliness of her mother in
those few weeks previous to Lady Lufton's arrival in town--very
grievous, at least, to her ladyship, as from time to time she heard
of what was done in London. Lady Hartletop's was not the only
objectionable house at which Griselda was allowed to reap fresh
fashionable laurels. It had been stated openly in the _Morning Post_
that that young lady had been the most admired among the beautiful at
one of Miss Dunstable's celebrated _soirees_ and then she was heard
of as gracing the drawing-room at Mrs. Proudie's conversazione.

Of Miss Dunstable herself Lady Lufton was not able openly to allege
any evil. She was acquainted, Lady Lufton knew, with very many people
of the right sort, and was the dear friend of Lady Lufton's highly
conservative and not very distant neighbours, the Greshams. But then
she was also acquainted with so many people of the bad sort. Indeed,
she was intimate with everybody, from the Duke of Omnium to old
Dowager Lady Goodygaffer, who had represented all the cardinal
virtues for the last quarter of a century. She smiled with equal
sweetness on treacle and on brimstone; was quite at home at Exeter
Hall, having been consulted--so the world said, probably not with
exact truth--as to the selection of more than one disagreeably Low
Ch