rily bend her proud neck beneath the yoke. She foresaw that her
mother and Addie would triumph; she felt that her bondage to Mrs. Grundy
would often be irksome; but here was the first instalment of her wages in
this long waltz with Percival. She fancied that the secret of her pleasure
lay in the two words--"with Percival." In her ignorance she thought that
she was tasting the honeyed fire of love, when in truth it was the
sweetness of conscious success. Before the last notes of that enchanted
music died away she had cast her girlish devotion, "half in a rapture and
half in a rage," at her partner's feet, while he stood beside her calm and
self-possessed. He would have been astounded, and perhaps almost disgusted,
had he known what was passing through her mind.

Love at sixteen is generally only a desire to be in love, and seeks not so
much a fit as a possible object. Probably Lottie's passion offered as many
assurances of domestic bliss as could be desired at her age.

Percival was dark, foreign-looking and handsome: he had an interesting air
of reserve, and no apparent need to practise small economies. His clothes
fitted him extremely well, and at times he had a way of standing proudly
aloof which was worthy of any hero of romance. No settled occupation would
interfere with picnics and balls; and, to crown all, had he not said to
her, "Those eyes of yours"? Were not these ample foundations for the
happiness of thirty or forty years of marriage?

Percival, meanwhile, wanted to be kind to the childish, half-tamed Lottie,
who had attracted his notice in the fields and trusted him with her
generous message to Robin Wingfield. The girl fancied herself immensely
improved by her white dress, but had Thorne been a painter he would have
sketched her as a pale vision of Liberty, with loosely-knotted hair and
dark eyes glowing under Robin's red cap. He was able coolly to determine
the precise nature of his pleasure in her society, but he knew that it was
a pleasure. And Lottie, when she fell asleep that night, clasped a card
which was rendered priceless by the frequent recurrence of his initials.

Her passion transformed her. Her vehement spirit remained, but everything
else was changed. Her old dreams and longings were cast out by the new. She
laughed with Mrs. Blake and Addie, but under the laughter she hid her love,
and cherished it in fierce and solitary silence. Yet even to herself the
transformation seemed so wonderful tha