is far above that, but it is plain how it will he. The
only other relation she knows in the world is farther off than we
are--not a bit more of a Charlecote, and twice her age; and when she has
waited twenty or thirty years longer for the auburn-haired lady my father
saw in a chapel at Toronto, she will bethink herself that Owen, or Owen's
eldest son, had better have it than the Queen. That's the sense of it;
but I hate the hanger-on position it keeps him in.'

'It is a misfortune,' said Robert. 'People treat him as a man of
expectations, and at his age it would not be easy to disown them, even to
himself. He has an eldest son air about him, which makes people impose
on him the belief that he is one; and yet, who could have guarded against
the notion more carefully than Miss Charlecote?'

'I'm of Uncle Kit's mind,' said Lucilla, 'that children should be left to
their natural guardians. What! is Lolly really moving before I have
softened down the edge of my ingratitude?'

'So!' said Miss Charteris, as she brought up the rear of the procession
of ladies on the stairs.

Lucilla faced about on the step above, with a face where interrogation
was mingled with merry defiance.

'So that is why the Calthorp could not get a word all the livelong
dinner-time!'

'Ah! I used you ill; I promised you an opportunity of studying "Cock
Robin," but you see I could not help keeping him myself--I had not seen
him for so long.'

'You were very welcome! It is the very creature that baffles me. I can
talk to any animal in the world except an incipient parson.'

'Owen, for instance?'

'Oh! if people choose to put a force on nature, there can be no general
rules. But, Cilly, you know I've always said you should marry whoever
you liked; but I require another assurance--on your word and honour--that
you are not irrevocably Jenny Wren as yet!'

'Did you not see the currant wine?' said Cilly, pulling leaves off a
myrtle in a tub on the stairs, and scattering them over her cousin.

'Seriously, Cilly! Ah, I see now--your exclusive attention to him
entirely reassures me. You would never have served him so, if you had
meant it.'

'It was commonplace in me,' said Lucilla, gravely, 'but I could not help
it; he made me feel so good--or so bad--that I believe I shall--'

'Not give up the salmon,' cried Horatia. 'Cilly, you will drive me to
commit matrimony on the spot.'

'Do,' said Lucilla, running lightly up, and dancing into t