d, with sudden impetuosity, a minute
after. "I am sure Mr Wentworth could vindicate himself whenever he
likes. I daresay the one story is just as true as the other; but
then," said the gentle elder sister, turning with anxious looks
towards Lucy, "he is proud, as is natural; and I shouldn't think he
would enter into explanations if he thought people did not trust him
without them."

"That is all stuff," said Mr Wodehouse; "why should people trust him? I
don't understand trusting a man in all sorts of equivocal circumstances,
because he's got dark eyes, &c., and a handsome face--which seems _your_
code of morality; but I thought he was after Lucy--that was my
belief--and I want to know if it's all off."

"It never was on, papa," said Lucy, in her clearest voice. "I have been
a great deal in the district, you know, and Mr Wentworth and I could not
help meeting each other; that is all about it: but people must always
have something to talk about in Carlingford. I hope you don't think I
and Rosa Elsworthy could go together," she went on, turning round to him
with a smile. "I don't think that would be much of a compliment;" and,
saying this, Lucy went to get her work out of its usual corner, and sat
down opposite to her father, with a wonderfully composed face. She was
so composed, indeed, that any interested beholder might have been
justified in thinking that the work suffered in consequence, for it
seemed to take nearly all Lucy's strength and leisure to keep up that
look.

"Oh!" said Mr Wodehouse, "that's how it was? Then I wonder why that
confounded puppy came here so constantly? I don't like that sort of
behaviour. Don't you go into the district any more and meet
him--that's all I've got to say."

"Because of Rosa Elsworthy?" said Lucy, with a little smile, which did
not flicker naturally, but was apt to get fixed at the corners of her
pretty mouth. "That would never do, papa. Mr Wentworth's private
concerns are nothing to us; but, you know, there is a great work going
on in the district, and _that_ can't be interfered with," said the young
Sister of Mercy, looking up at him with a decision which Mr Wodehouse
was aware he could make no stand against. And when she stopped speaking,
Lucy did a little work, which was for the district too. All this time
she was admitting to herself that she had been much startled by this
news about Rosa Elsworthy,--much startled. To be sure, it was not like
Mr Wentworth, and very likel