to think that I could know him and not love him."

"I saw all that going on," said Lady Lufton, with a certain
assumption of wisdom about her; "and took steps which I hoped would
have put a stop to it in time."

"Everybody saw it. It was a matter of course," said Lucy, destroying
her ladyship's wisdom at a blow. "Well; I did learn to love him, not
meaning to do so; and I do love him with all my heart. It is no use
my striving to think that I do not; and I could stand with him at
the altar to-morrow and give him my hand, feeling that I was doing
my duty by him, as a woman should do. And now he has told you of
his love, and I believe in that as I do in my own--" And then for a
moment she paused.

"But, my dear Miss Robarts--" began Lady Lufton. Lucy, however, had
now worked herself up into a condition of power, and would not allow
her ladyship to interrupt her in her speech. "I beg your pardon, Lady
Lufton; I shall have done directly, and then I will hear you. And so
my brother came to me, not urging this suit, expressing no wish for
such a marriage, but allowing me to judge for myself, and proposing
that I should see your son again on the following morning. Had I done
so, I could not but have accepted him. Think of it, Lady Lufton. How
could I have done other than accept him, seeing that in my heart I
had accepted his love already?"

"Well?" said Lady Lufton, not wishing now to put in any speech of her
own.

"I did not see him--I refused to do so--because I was a coward. I
could not endure to come into this house as your son's wife, and be
coldly looked on by your son's mother. Much as I loved him, much as I
do love him, dearly as I prize the generous offer which he came down
here to repeat to me, I could not live with him to be made the object
of your scorn. I sent him word, therefore, that I would have him when
you would ask me, and not before." And, then, having thus pleaded her
cause--and pleaded, as she believed, the cause of her lover also--she
ceased from speaking, and prepared herself to listen to the story
of King Cophetua. But Lady Lufton felt considerable difficulty in
commencing her speech. In the first place she was by no means a
hard-hearted or a selfish woman; and were it not that her own son was
concerned, and all the glory which was reflected upon her from her
son, her sympathies would have been given to Lucy Robarts. As it was,
she did sympathize with her, and admire her, and to a certain extent