d the door, gave the footman directions about the luggage, took
his own seat by the coachman, and the carriage started. Lady Verner came
to the door of the Court to receive Miss Tempest.

In the old Indian days of Lady Verner, she and Sir Lionel had been close
and intimate friends of Colonel and Mrs. Tempest. Subsequently Mrs.
Tempest had died, and their only daughter had been sent to a clergyman's
family in England for her education--a very superior place, where six
pupils only were taken. But she was of an age to leave it now, and
Colonel Tempest, who contemplated soon being home, had craved of Lady
Verner to receive her in the interim.

"Lionel," said his mother to him, "you must stop here for the rest of
the day, and help to entertain her."

"Why, what can I do towards it?" responded Lionel.

"You can do something. You can talk. They have got Decima into her room,
and I must be up and down with her. I don't like leaving Lucy alone the
first day she is in the house; she will take a prejudice against it. One
blessed thing, she seams quite simple--not exacting."

"Anything but exacting, I should say," replied Lionel. "I will stay for
an hour or two, if you like, mother, but I must be home to dinner."

Lady Verner need not have troubled herself about "entertaining" Lucy
Tempest. She was accustomed to entertain herself; and as to any ceremony
or homage being paid to her, she would not have understood it, and might
have felt embarrassed had it been tendered. She had not been used to
anything of the sort. Could Lady Verner have seen her then, at the very
moment she was talking to Lionel, her fears might have been relieved.
Lucy Tempest had found her way to Decima's room, and had taken up her
position in a very undignified fashion at that young lady's feet, her
soft, candid brown eyes fixed upwards on Decima's face, and her tongue
busy with reminiscences of India. After some time spent in this manner,
she was scared away by the entrance of a gentleman whom Decima called
"Jan." Upon which she proceeded to the chamber she had been shown to as
hers, to dress; a process which did not appear to be very elaborate by
the time it took, and then she went downstairs to find Lady Verner.

Lady Verner had not quitted Lionel. She had been grumbling and
complaining all that time. It was half the pastime of Lady Verner's life
to grumble in the ears of Lionel and Decima. Bitterly mortified had Lady
Verner been when she found, upon he