me to the parsonage from Framley Court, feeling that he was
altogether in the dark till he should have consulted his wife. How
would he feel if Lucy were to become Lady Lufton? and how would he
look Lady Lufton in the face in telling her that such was to be his
sister's destiny? On returning home he immediately found his wife,
and had not been closeted with her five minutes before he knew, at
any rate, all that she knew. "And you mean to say that she does love
him?" said Mark.

"Indeed she does; and is it not natural that she should? When I saw
them so much together I feared that she would. But I never thought
that he would care for her." Even Fanny did not as yet give Lucy
credit for half her attractiveness. After an hour's talking the
interview between the husband and wife ended in a message to Lucy,
begging her to join them both in the book-room.

"Aunt Lucy," said a chubby little darling, who was taken up into his
aunt's arms as he spoke, "papa and mamma 'ant 'oo in te tuddy, and I
musn't go wis 'oo." Lucy, as she kissed the boy and pressed his face
against her own, felt that her blood was running quick to her heart.

"Musn't 'oo go wis me, my own one?" she said as she put her
playfellow down; but she played with the child only because she did
not wish to betray, even to him, that she was hardly mistress of
herself. She knew that Lord Lufton was at Framley; she knew that her
brother had been to him; she knew that a proposal had been made that
he should come there that day to dinner. Must it not, therefore, be
the case that this call to a meeting in the study had arisen out of
Lord Lufton's arrival at Framley? and yet, how could it have done so?
Had Fanny betrayed her in order to prevent the dinner invitation? It
could not be possible that Lord Lufton himself should have spoken on
the subject! And then she again stooped to kiss the child, rubbed
her hands across her forehead to smooth her hair, and erase, if
that might be possible, the look of care which she wore, and then
descended slowly to her brother's sitting-room. Her hand paused for a
second on the door ere she opened it, but she had resolved that, come
what might, she would be brave. She pushed it open and walked in with
a bold front, with eyes wide open, and a slow step. "Frank says that
you want me," she said. Mr. Robarts and Fanny were both standing up
by the fireplace, and each waited a second for the other to speak,
when Lucy entered the room, and the