tion which she brought
against herself, and it forbade her to feel any triumph as to the
result of her interview. When she reached the parsonage, Mark was
there, and they were of course expecting her. "Well," said she, in
her short, hurried manner, "is Puck ready again? I have no time to
lose, and I must go and pack up a few things. Have you settled about
the children, Fanny?"

"Yes; I will tell you directly; but you have seen Lady Lufton?"

"Seen her! Oh, yes, of course I have seen her. Did she not send for
me? and in that case it was not on the cards that I should disobey
her."

"And what did she say?"

"How green you are, Mark; and not only green, but impolite also, to
make me repeat the story of my own disgrace. Of course she told me
that she did not intend that I should marry my lord, her son; and of
course I said that under those circumstances I should not think of
doing such a thing."

"Lucy, I cannot understand you," said Fanny, very gravely. "I am
sometimes inclined to doubt whether you have any deep feeling in the
matter or not. If you have, how can you bring yourself to joke about
it?"

"Well, it is singular; and sometimes I doubt myself whether I have.
I ought to be pale, ought I not? and very thin, and to go mad by
degrees? I have not the least intention of doing anything of the
kind, and, therefore, the matter is not worth any further notice."

"But was she civil to you, Lucy?" asked Mark: "civil In her manner,
you know?"

"Oh, uncommonly so. You will hardly believe it, but she actually
asked me to dine. She always does, you know, when she wants to
show her good humour. If you'd broken your leg, and she wished to
commiserate you, she'd ask you to dinner."

"I suppose she meant to be kind," said Fanny, who was not disposed to
give up her old friend, though she was quite ready to fight Lucy's
battle, if there were any occasion for a battle to be fought.

"Lucy is so perverse," said Mark, "that it is impossible to learn
from her what really has taken place."

"Upon my word, then, you know it all as well as I can tell you. She
asked me if Lord Lufton had made me an offer. I said, yes. She asked
next, if I meant to accept it. Not without her approval, I said. And
then she asked us all to dinner. That is exactly what took place, and
I cannot see that I have been perverse at all." After that she threw
herself into a chair, and Mark and Fanny stood looking at each other.

"Mark," she said, after a