erations, which had himself in any way for their object, would
have the smallest weight with him against his love, or even against what
he chose to consider his honour.

Her face unconsciously brightened while she thought over all these
things, and suffered herself again to dwell on her old favourite idea
without being in the least doubtful as to Lucia's final consent. Yet
while she thus laid the foundation for new castles in the air, Lucia
herself was busy with thoughts and recollections not too favourable to
her mother's plans.

Percy, not Maurice, filled _her_ mind. She went back, in her fancies, to
the night when he had told her she must go with him to England, and she
had been so happy and so ignorant of all that was to separate them. Then
she thought of the next day, and how she had sent him away, and told him
that it would disgrace him to marry her. Somehow the disgrace which had
weighed so heavily on her then seemed marvellously light now, since she
had known one so much deeper; and in the blessed sense of freedom which
came to her through Clarkson's confession, she was ready to think that
all else was of small consequence. Did not girls marry every day whose
fathers were all that her father had been? Ah, not _all_; there was
always that Indian blood, which, though it might be the blood of kings
and heroes, put its possessor on a level with the lowest of Europeans,
or rather put him apart as something little higher than a brute. She
knew this; but to-night she would not think of it. She would only see
what she liked; and for the first time began to weave impossible fabrics
of hope and happiness. Where was he, her one lover, for she thought of
no other? She had no fear of a rival with him, not even of that Lady
Adeliza, of whom she had heard, and whom she had once feared. Now she
knew that he really had loved _her_, and feared nothing; for even
supposing that he would in time forget her, love had not had time to
change yet. And need it change at all? She and her mother were going
by-and-by to Europe, and there they might meet. Who could tell?

But all these things which have taken so long to say took but a few
minutes to think; and of the three who sat together, neither would have
guessed how long a train of ideas passed through the brains of the
others in the interval of their talk. Mrs. Costello was the first to
rouse herself.

"You do not yet know," she said to Mr. Strafford, "what my plans for
to-morrow a