t it would be a happy
marriage if you both cared for each other enough. She thinks that
he is fond of you. But if he were ten times Lord Lufton I would not
tease you about it if I thought that you could not learn to care
about him. What was it you were going to say, my dear?"

"Lord Lufton thinks a great deal more of Lucy Robarts than he does
of--of--of any one else, I believe," said Griselda, showing now some
little animation by her manner, "dumpy little black thing that she
is."

"Lucy Robarts!" said Mrs. Grantly, taken by surprise at finding that
her daughter was moved by such a passion as jealousy, and feeling
also perfectly assured that there could not be any possible ground
for jealousy in such a direction as that. "Lucy Robarts, my dear! I
don't suppose Lord Lufton ever thought of speaking to her, except in
the way of civility."

"Yes, he did, mamma! Don't you remember at Framley?" Mrs. Grantly
began to look back in her mind, and she thought she did remember
having once observed Lord Lufton talking in rather a confidential
manner with the parson's sister. But she was sure that there was
nothing in it. If that was the reason why Griselda was so cold to her
proposed lover, it would be a thousand pities that it should not be
removed. "Now you mention her, I do remember the young lady," said
Mrs. Grantly, "a dark girl, very low, and without much figure. She
seemed to me to keep very much in the background."

"I don't know much about that, mamma."

"As far as I saw her, she did. But, my dear Griselda, you should not
allow yourself to think of such a thing. Lord Lufton, of course, is
bound to be civil to any young lady in his mother's house, and I am
quite sure that he has no other idea whatever with regard to Miss
Robarts. I certainly cannot speak as to her intellect, for I do not
think she opened her mouth in my presence; but--"

"Oh! she has plenty to say for herself, when she pleases. She's a sly
little thing."

"But, at any rate, my dear, she has no personal attractions whatever,
and I do not at all think that Lord Lufton is a man to be taken
by--by--by anything that Miss Robarts might do or say." As those
words "personal attractions" were uttered, Griselda managed so to
turn her neck as to catch a side view of herself in one of the
mirrors on the wall, and then she bridled herself up, and made a
little play with her eyes, and looked, as her mother thought, very
well. "It is all nothing to me, mamma, of