nd
flirtations and passing likings also, which prevented his thoughts from
dwelling so continually upon Mary Gifford. Moreover, he knew the gulf set
between them was impassable, and she was really more, as he said, like a
saint out of his reach, than a woman of everyday life, whom he longed to
make his wife.

George, on his hilltop, with no companion but his querulous mother--Mrs
Ratcliffe was for ever harping on his folly in suffering his cousin
Dorothy, with her full money-bags, to slip through his fingers, to bless
the draper's son in the Chepe with what would have been so valuable to him
and to her--was far more to be pitied; and it was no wonder that he
withdrew more and more into himself, and grew somewhat morose and gruff in
his manner.

It was something to watch for Lady Pembroke's visits to Penshurst, when
Lucy would at least appear with the household at church, but these visits
only left him more hopeless than before.

His only consolation was that, although Lucy would not listen to his suit,
she apparently favoured no one else.

George was conscious of a change in her; she was no longer the gay,
careless maiden of years gone by, no longer full of jests, teasing ways,
and laughter, but a dignified lady, held in high esteem in the Countess of
Pembroke's household; and, alas! further from him than ever.

In the dance to which George led Lucy, they found themselves opposite to
Humphrey and one of the younger members of the Countess's household.

A bright, blue-eyed, laughing girl, who rallied Lucy on her sedate
behaviour, and the profound curtseys she made to her partner, instead of
the pirouette which she performed with Humphrey, his arm round her waist,
and her little feet twinkling under the short skirt of her stiff brocade,
like birds on the wing.

When the dance was over, George said,--

'The air is hot and fevered in this room; will you take a stroll with me,
Mistress Lucy, in the gallery? or is it too great a favour to ask at your
hands?'

'Nay, no favour,' Lucy replied; 'I shall be as well pleased as you are to
leave the ballroom.'

So they went together through the gallery, where, now and again, they saw
couples engrossed with each other's company in the deep recesses of the
windows.

The young moon hung like a silver bow in the clear sky, and from this
window the church tower was seen beyond the pleasance, and the outline of
the trees, behind which the moon was hastening to sink in the wes