r, "I suppose we
have both now said what is necessary, and I will therefore wish you
good-bye."

"Good-bye, Miss Robarts. I wish I could make you understand how very
highly I regard your conduct in this matter. It has been above all
praise, and so I shall not hesitate to say when speaking of it to
your relatives." This was disagreeable enough to Lucy, who cared
but little for any praise which Lady Lufton might express to her
relatives in this matter. "And pray," continued Lady Lufton, "give
my best love to Mrs. Robarts, and tell her that I shall hope to see
her over here very soon, and Mr. Robarts also. I would name a day for
you all to dine; but perhaps it will be better that I should have a
little talk with Fanny first."

Lucy muttered something, which was intended to signify that any
such dinner party had better not be made up with the intention of
including her, and then took her leave. She had decidedly had the
best of the interview, and there was a consciousness of this in her
heart as she allowed Lady Lufton to shake hands with her. She had
stopped her antagonist short on each occasion on which an attempt had
been made to produce the homily which had been prepared, and during
the interview had spoken probably three words for every one which
her ladyship had been able to utter. But, nevertheless, there was
a bitter feeling of disappointment about her heart as she walked
back home; and a feeling, also, that she herself had caused her own
unhappiness. Why should she have been so romantic and chivalrous and
self-sacrificing, seeing that her romance and chivalry had all been
to his detriment as well as to hers,--seeing that she sacrificed
him as well as herself? Why should she have been so anxious to play
into Lady Lufton's hands? It was not because she thought it right,
as a general social rule, that a lady should refuse a gentleman's
hand, unless the gentleman's mother were a consenting party to the
marriage. She would have held any such doctrine as absurd. The lady,
she would have said, would have had to look to her own family and no
further. It was not virtue but cowardice which had influenced her,
and she had none of that solace which may come to us in misfortune
from a consciousness that our own conduct has been blameless. Lady
Lufton had inspired her with awe, and any such feeling on her part
was mean, ignoble, and unbecoming the spirit with which she wished to
think that she was endowed. That was the accusa