drive home. She was
disappointed and chagrined, but not discouraged. She was vain as a
peacock or Queen Elizabeth. Like another _Dorcasina_, she fancied every
man to be her _inamorata_. She had never abandoned the idea that Duncan
Lisle had been once in love with her. She had been encouraged in this
delusion by the duplicity of her servants, who, to propitiate her favor,
had been in the habit of repeating false expressions of his admiration
and regard.

"If all reports are true, he thinks more of you this day than he does of
Miss Ellice," said one.

"Everybody knows that Duncan Lisle worships the ground you tread on, and
always did. Miss Ellice happened to come along and just inveigled him,
that is all; he is sorry enough, you may 'pend," falsified another.

"He always _was_ talking about how mighty han'some you was, and what
beautiful eyes you had," declared a third, and so it went, and credulous
Mrs. Rush laid the flattering unction to her soul that she was the one
woman in the world for Duncan Lisle.

"It is only for looks' sake; he wanted to come bad enough, you may bet
on that," said Dinah to her mistress, when informed that she had got up
her great dinner for nobody but little Master Hubert.

As to Hubert, after he was through with his good dinner, he had anything
but a pleasant visit. Thornton Rush--his name was Jude Thornton
Rush--was a few months older than Hubert, He possessed the beauty of his
mother, with the dark, hidden nature of his father. He was stubborn,
morose, and quarrelsome. He abounded in bad qualities, but if there was
one which excelled another, it was cunning and duplicity. These were so
combined as really to form but one. Had he been a man and termed
_Jesuitical_, in the Protestant sense, that term would have aptly
described him. Now Hubert was not perfect more than other children, but,
compared to Thornton Rush, he was a little saint. His organ of
combativeness frequently waged stern conflicts with his bump of
reverence. His sense of right was keen as his sensitiveness against
wrong and falsehood. He was, like his mother, frank and open as the day,
generous, disinterested, and unselfish.

What should happen, then, when these two natures came together? What but
thunder and lightning, as when two clouds meet?

Duncan Lisle thought about this as he saw his boy borne away from him,
and he resolved to go over for him very soon after dinner. He arrived
just in time to rescue him, bruised a