,--

"Lucy! I want Lucy!"

"What do you want with her?" asked Madame Vine.

"_Il m'est impossible de vous le dire madame_," responded he. Being, for
an Eton boy, wonderfully up in French, he was rather given to show it
off when he got the chance. He did not owe thanks for it to Eton. Lady
Mount Severn had taken better care than that. Better care? What _could_
she want? There was one whole, real, live French tutor--and he an
Englishman!--for the eight hundred boys. Very unreasonable of her
ladyship to disparage that ample provision.

"Lucy cannot come to you just now. She is practicing."

"_Mais, il le faut. J'ai le droit de demander apres elle. Elle
m'appartient, vous comprenez, madame, cette demoiselle la._"

Madame could not forbear a smile. "I wish you would speak English sense,
instead of French nonsense."

"Then the English sense is that I want Lucy and I must have her. I am
going to take her for a drive in the pony carriage, if you must know.
She said she'd come, and John's getting it ready."

"I could not possibly allow it," said Madame Vine. "You'd be sure to
upset her."

"The idea!" he returned, indignantly. "As if I should upset Lucy! Why,
I'm one of the great whips at Eton. I care for Lucy too much not to
drive steadily. She is to be my wife, you know, _ma bonne dame_."

At this juncture two heads were pushed out from the library, close
by; those of the earl and Mr. Carlyle. Barbara, also, attracted by the
talking, appeared at the door of her dressing-room.

"What's that about a wife?" asked my lord of his son.

The blood mantled in the young gentleman's cheek as he turned round and
saw who had spoken, but he possessed all the fearlessness of an Eton
boy.

"I intend Lucy Carlyle to be my wife, papa. I mean in earnest--when we
shall both be grown up--if you will approve, and Mr. Carlyle will give
her to me."

The earl looked somewhat impassable, Mr. Carlyle amused. "Suppose," said
the latter, "we adjourn the discussion to this day ten years?"

"But that Lucy is so very young a child, I should reprove you seriously,
sir," said the earl. "You have no right to bring Lucy's name into any
such absurdity."

"I mean it, papa; you'll all see. And I intend to keep out of
scrapes--that is, of nasty, dishonorable scrapes--on purpose that Mr.
Carlyle shall find no excuse against me. I have made up my mind to be
what he is--a man of honor. I am right glad you know about it, sir, and
I shall let mamma k