ot very easy to refuse. Theodora said
something of seeing about it, and hoping--

'It would be such a treat,' said Lady Lucy, growing bolder, as the two
gentlemen were speaking to each other. 'My aunt is gone to her brother's
little parsonage, where there is no room for me, and my governess had to
go home, luckily, so that we are quite alone together; and St. Erme said
perhaps you would be so kind sometimes as to walk with me--'

Theodora smiled. 'I hope we may meet sometimes,' said she. 'If my sister
was down-stairs perhaps we might; but I am engaged to her.'

Thus ended the visit, and Arthur, hastily throwing the cushions back
into their places, demanded, 'What on earth could possess those folks to
come here now!'

'It was an inconvenient time,' said Theodora.

'Dawdling and loitering here!--a man with nothing better to do with his
time!'

'Nay,' said Theodora, touched by the injustice; 'Lord St. Erme is no man
not to know how to dispose of his time.'

'Whew!' whistled Arthur; 'is the wind gone round to that quarter? Well,
I thought better of you than that you would like a fellow that can do
nothing but draw, never shoots over his own moors, and looks like
a German singer! But do put the room tidy; and if you must have the
nursery down here, put it into the back room, for mercy sake!'

He went away, having thus stirred her feelings in the St. Erme
direction, and he left them to take their chance for the rest of the
day. She took a solitary walk; on her return saw a hat in the hall, and
asking whether Mr. Harding was there, was told no, but that Mr. Gardner
was with Captain Martindale. And after long waiting till Arthur should
come to dinner, he only put in his head, saying, 'Oh, Theodora, are you
waiting? I beg your pardon, I am going out to dinner. You can sit with
Violet; and if she should want me, which she won't, James knows where to
find me.'

Theodora scorned to inquire of the servant whither his master was gone;
but her appetite forsook her at the sight of the empty chair, and the
recollection of the warning against Mark Gardner.

This was not her last solitary dinner. Arthur had engagements almost
every day, or else went to his club; and when at home, if he was not
with Violet, he sat in his own room, and would never again assist at
the sittings, which were completed under less favourable auspices,
soon enough to allow time for the framing before the mamma should come
down-stairs. Her recovery proc