k and I are more like brother and sister than anything else. I
had so much to say to him;--so much to ask him to do! I have no one
else, you know, and I had especially told him to come here."

"Of course he was welcome to come."

"Only I was afraid you might think that there was some little lover's
trick,--on dear Lucy's part, you know."

"I never suspect anything of that kind," said Lady Fawn, bridling up.
"Lucy Morris is above any sort of trick. We don't have any tricks
here, Lady Eustace." Lady Fawn herself might say that Lucy was
"wrong," but no one else in that house should even suggest evil of
Lucy. Lizzie retreated smiling. To have "put Lady Fawn's back up," as
she called it, was to her an achievement and a pleasure.

But the great excitement of the evening consisted in the expected
coming of Lord Fawn. Of what nature would be the meeting between
Lord Fawn and his promised bride? Was there anything of truth in the
opinion expressed by Mrs. Hittaway that her brother was beginning
to become tired of his bargain? That Lady Fawn was tired of it
herself,--that she disliked Lizzie, and was afraid of her, and averse
to the idea of regarding her as a daughter-in-law,--she did not now
attempt to hide from herself. But there was the engagement, known
to all the world, and how could its fulfilment now be avoided? The
poor dear old woman began to repeat to herself the first half of the
Quaker's advice, "Doan't thou marry for munny."

Lord Fawn was to come down only in time for a late dinner. An ardent
lover, one would have thought, might have left his work somewhat
earlier on a Saturday, so as to have enjoyed with his sweetheart
something of the sweetness of the Saturday summer afternoon;--but it
was seven before he reached Fawn Court, and the ladies were at that
time in their rooms dressing. Lizzie had affected to understand all
his reasons for being so late, and had expressed herself as perfectly
satisfied. "He has more to do than any of the others," she had said
to Augusta. "Indeed, the whole of our vast Indian empire may be said
to hang upon him, just at present;"--which was not complimentary to
Lord Fawn's chief, the Right Honourable Legge Wilson, who at the
present time represented the interests of India in the Cabinet. "He
is terribly overworked, and it is a shame;--but what can one do?"

"I think he likes work," Augusta had replied.

"But I don't like it,--not so much of it; and so I shall make him
understand