. She was sitting in an armchair facing the
window, her knees crossed idly, her elbow leaning on a table beside
her, her head resting on her hand; idle, listless. Perhaps her toilette
alone, as an elaborate work, might excuse her from any other for
several hours. She looked round with a smile, and even that was tired,
as I entered and crossed to her.

"How are you, dearest, to-day?" I said, as I took her hand. "No, pray,
don't get up," I added, as she made a movement to rise, and to obviate
her doing so, I dropped into a low wicker chair, which I drew up close
to hers, and laid the lilies on her lap.

"I am as well as usual, thanks, Victor. These are lovely! Where did you
get them?"

"At a shop in Regent Street. I wanted something extraordinary, but they
had nothing."

"What could you have more beautiful than these?"

"Beautiful? Yes; but there is no worth in beauty unless there is some
peculiarity about it to attract one. May I do that for you?"

She had lifted the flowers and begun to fasten them into the front of
her bodice, a difficult work, covered, as it was, with an intricate
maze of lace.

"Thank you! I am perfectly capable of achieving it myself."

The familiar, cold pride in the tone brought an ironical smile to my
lips--suppressed, however, before she saw it.

"You are afraid of the risk of my hand touching your breast
accidentally in fastening a flower!" I thought, satirically, as I
watched her in silence, and remembered the mission with which I had
come. I glanced at the clock and saw it was later than I thought.

"Do you know what I have come for this morning, Lucia?" I asked,
leaning my elbow on the arm of her chair, and looking into the soft
blue eyes that seemed to have a sort of timidity in them of me now.

"To torment me as usual, I suppose," she answered.

"That depends upon how you take it," I said, with a slight laugh.

"I have come to say Good-bye."

I watched her keenly as I spoke, and I saw she was perceptibly
startled. She fixed her eyes upon me, and the colour began to recede
visibly from her face. However, she only said calmly after a moment,--

"Well, if you are going away, I shall have peace at any rate."

"Yes, dear," I answered gently, "you will have peace certainly as far
as I am concerned, for if I go now I shall consider our engagement
terminated."

Lucia started into an upright position in her chair.

"Victor!" she exclaimed, fixing two widely-dilated eyes upon m