Mabel?"

"Very much. I know no pleasure equal to it. You have never seen
Grex?"

"Is it like this?"

"Not in the least. It is wilder than this, and there are not so many
trees; but to my eyes it is very beautiful. I wish you had seen it."

"Perhaps I may some day."

"That is not likely now," she said. "The house is in ruins. If I had
just money enough to keep it for myself, I think I could live alone
there and be happy."

"You;--alone! Of course you mean to marry?"

"Mean to marry! Do persons marry because they mean it? With nineteen
men out of twenty the idea of marrying them would convey the idea of
hating them. You can mean to marry. No doubt you do mean it."

"I suppose I shall,--some day. How very well the house looks from
here." It was incumbent upon him at the present moment to turn the
conversation.

But when she had a project in her head it was not so easy to turn her
away. "Yes, indeed," she said, "very well. But as I was saying,--you
can mean to marry."

"Anybody can mean it."

"But you can carry out a purpose. What are you thinking of doing
now?"

"Upon my honour, Mabel, that is unfair."

"Are we not friends?"

"I think so."

"Dear friends?"

"I hope so."

"Then may I not tell you what I think? If you do not mean to marry
that American young lady you should not raise false hopes."

"False--hopes!" He had hopes, but he had never thought that Isabel
could have any.

"False hopes;--certainly. Do you not know that everyone was looking
at you last night?"

"Certainly not."

"And that that old woman is going about talking of it as her doing,
pretending to be afraid of your father, whereas nothing would please
her better than to humble a family so high as yours."

"Humble!" exclaimed Lord Silverbridge.

"Do you think your father would like it? Would you think that another
man would be doing well for himself by marrying Miss Boncassen?"

"I do," said he energetically.

"Then you must be very much in love with her."

"I say nothing about that."

"If you are so much in love with her that you mean to face the
displeasure of all your friends--"

"I do not say what I mean. I could talk more freely to you than to
any one else, but I won't talk about that even to you. As regards
Miss Boncassen, I think that any man might marry her, without
discredit. I won't have it said that she can be inferior to me,--or
to anybody."

There was a steady manliness in this which took Lady Mabel b