r elbow.

"Ever so many tumblers of it," she answered. "Jan said I was to keep
sipping it all day long. The water, going down slowly, heals the chest."

"I believe if Jan told you to drink boiling water, you'd do it, Lucy,"
cried Lady Verner. "You seem to fall in with all he says."

"Because I like him, Lady Verner. Because I have faith in him; and if
Jan prescribes a thing, I know that he has faith in it."

"It is not displaying a refined taste to like Jan," observed Lady
Verner, intending the words as a covert reprimand to Lucy.

But Lucy stood up for Jan. Even at the dread of openly disagreeing with
Lady Verner, Lucy would not be unjust to one whom she deemed of sterling
worth.

"I like Jan very much," said she resolutely, in her championship.
"There's nobody I like so well as Jan, Lady Verner."

Lady Verner made a slight movement with her shoulders. It was almost as
much as to say that Lucy was growing as hopelessly incorrigible as Jan.
Lionel turned to Lucy.

"_Nobody_ you like so well as Jan, did you say?"

Poor Lucy! If the look of Lionel, just before, had brought the hot blush
to her cheek, that blush was nothing compared to the glowing crimson
which mantled there now. She had not been thinking of one sort of liking
when she so spoke of Jan: the words had come forth in the honest
simplicity of her heart.

Did Lionel read the signs aright, as her eyes fell before his? Very
probably. A smile stole over his lips.

"I do like Jan very much," stammered Lucy, essaying to mend the matter.
"I _may_ like him, I suppose? There's no harm in it."

"Oh! no harm, certainly," spoke Lady Verner, with a spice of irony. "I
never thought Jan could be a favourite before. Not being fastidiously
polished yourself, Lucy--forgive my saying it--you entertain, I
conclude, a fellow feeling for Jan."

Lucy--for Jan's sake--would not be beaten.

"Don't you think it is better to be like Jan, Lady Verner,
than--than--like Dr. West, for instance?"

"In what way?" returned Lady Verner.

"Jan is so true," debated Lucy, ignoring the question.

"And Dr. West was not, I suppose," retorted Lady Verner. "He wrote false
prescriptions, perhaps? Gave false advice?"

Lucy looked a little foolish. "I will tell you the difference, as it
seems to me, between Jan and other people," she said. "Jan is like a
rough diamond--real within, unpolished without--but a genuine diamond
withal. Many others are but the imitation stone--glittering ou