ou was this: I think you should know what are the
ideas which Lady Lufton entertains."

"Her ideas!" said Griselda, who had never troubled herself much in
thinking about other people's thoughts.

"Yes, Griselda. While you were staying down at Framley Court, and
also, I suppose, since you have been up here in Bruton Street, you
must have seen a good deal of--Lord Lufton."

"He doesn't come very often to Bruton Street,--that is to say, not
_very_ often."

"H-m," ejaculated Mrs. Grantly, very gently. She would willingly have
repressed the sound altogether, but it had been too much for her. If
she found reason to think that Lady Lufton was playing her false, she
would immediately take her daughter away, break up the treaty, and
prepare for the Hartletop alliance. Such were the thoughts that ran
through her mind. But she knew all the while that Lady Lufton was not
false. The fault was not with Lady Lufton; nor, perhaps, altogether
with Lord Lufton. Mrs. Grantly had understood the full force of the
complaint which Lady Lufton had made against her daughter; and though
she had of course defended her child, and on the whole had defended
her successfully, yet she confessed to herself that Griselda's chance
of a first-rate establishment would be better if she were a little
more impulsive. A man does not wish to marry a statue, let the
statue be ever so statuesque. She could not teach her daughter to be
impulsive, any more than she could teach her to be six feet high; but
might it not be possible to teach her to seem so? The task was a very
delicate one, even for a mother's hand. "Of course he cannot be at
home now as much as he was down in the country, when he was living
in the same house," said Mrs. Grantly, whose business it was to take
Lord Lufton's part at the present moment. "He must be at his club,
and at the House of Lords, and in twenty places."

"He is very fond of going to parties, and he dances beautifully."

"I am sure he does. I have seen as much as that myself, and I think I
know some one with whom he likes to dance." And the mother gave the
daughter a loving little squeeze.

"Do you mean me, mamma?"

"Yes, I do mean you, my dear. And is it not true? Lady Lufton says
that he likes dancing with you better than with any one else in
London."

"I don't know," said Griselda, looking down upon the ground. Mrs.
Grantly thought that this upon the whole was rather a good opening.
It might have been better. Some po