"It is you, aunt."

"So it is. I thought it had been you. Come, you must come down, whether you eat anything or not. I like somebody to talk to me while I am eating, and I had an idea just now--it is gone--but perhaps it will come back to me: it was about this abominable gown. O! how I wish there was not such a thing as dress in the world!!!"

While Mrs. Bazalgette was munching water-snakes with delicate zeal, and Lucy nibbling cake, came a letter. Mrs. Bazalgette read it with heightening color, laid it down, cast a pitying glance on Lucy, and said, with a sigh, "Poor girl!"

Lucy turned a little pale. "Has anything happened?" she faltered.

"Something is going to happen; you are to be torn away from here, where you are so happy--where we all love you, dear. It is from that selfish old bachelor. Listen: 'Dear madam, my niece Lucy has been due here three days. I have waited to see whether you would part with her without being dunned. My curiosity on that point is satisfied, and I have now only my affection to consult, which I do by requesting you to put her and her maid into a carriage that will be waiting for her at your door twenty-four hours after you receive this note. I have the honor to be, madam,' an old brute!!"

"And you can smile; but that is you all over; you don't care a straw whether you are happy or miserable."

"Don't I?"

"Not you; you will leave this, where you are a little queen, and go and bury yourself three months with that old bachelor, and n.o.body will ever gather from your face that you are bored to death; and here we are asked to the Cavendishes' next Wednesday, and the Hunts' ball on Friday--you are such a lucky girl--our best invitations always drop in while you are with us--we go out three times as often during your months as at other times; it is your good fortune, or the weather, or something."

"Dear aunt, this was your own arrangement with Uncle Fountain. I used to be six months with each in turn till you insisted on its being three. You make me almost laugh, both you and Uncle Fountain; what _do_ you see in me worth quarreling for?"

"I will tell you what _he_ sees--a good little spiritless thing--"

"I am larger than you, dear."

"Yes, in body--that he can make a slave of--always ready to nurse him and his foe, or to put down your work and to take up his--to play at his vile backgammon."

"Piquet, please."

"Where is the difference?--to share his desolation, and take half his blue devils on your own shoulders, till he will hyp you so that to get away you will consent to marry into his set--the county set--some beggarly old family that came down from the Conquest, and has been going down ever since; so then he will let you fly--with a string: you must vegetate two miles from him; so then he can have you in to Backquette and write his letters: he will settle four hundred a year on you, and you will be miserable for life."

"Poor Uncle Fountain, what a schemer he turns out!"

"Men all turn out schemers when you know them, Miss Impertinence.

Well, dear, I have no selfish views for you. I love my few friends too single-heartedly for that; but I _am_ sad when I see you leaving us to go where you are not prized."

"Indeed, aunt, I am prized at Font Abbey. I am overrated there as I am here. They all receive me with open arms."

"So is a hare when it comes into a trap," said Mrs. Bazalgette, sharply, drawing upon a limited knowledge of grammar and field-sports.

"No--Uncle Fountain really loves me."

"As much as I do?" asked the lady, with a treacherous smile.

"Very nearly," was the young courtier's reply. She went on to console her aunt's unselfish solicitude, by a.s.suring her that Font Abbey was not a solitude; that dinners and b.a.l.l.s abounded, and her uncle was invited to them all.

"You little goose, don't you see? all those invitations are for your sake, not his. If we could look in on him now we should find him literally in single cursedness. Those county folks are not without cunning. They say beauty has come to stay with the beast; we must ask the beast to dinner, so then beauty will come along with him.

"What other pleasure awaits you at Font Abbey?"

"The pleasure of giving pleasure," replied Lucy, apologetically.

"Ah! that is your weakness, Lucy. It is all very well with those who won't take advantage; but it is the wrong game to play with all the world. You will be made a tool of, and a slave of, and use of. I speak from experience. You know how I sacrifice myself to those I love; luckily, they are not many."

"Not so many as love you, dear."

"Heaven forbid! but you are at the head of them all, and I am going to prove it--by deeds, not words."

Lucy looked up at this additional feature in her aunt's affection.

"You must go to the great bear's den for three months, but it shall be the last time!" Lucy said nothing.

"You will return never to quit us, or, at all events, not the neighborhood."

"That--would be nice," said the courtier warmly, but hesitatingly; "but how will you gain uncle's consent?"

"By dispensing with it."

"Yes; but the means, aunt?"

"A husband!"

Lucy started and colored all over, and looked askant at her aunt with opening eyes, like a thoroughbred filly just going to start all across the road. Mrs. Bazalgette laid a loving hand on her shoulder, and whispered knowingly in her ear: "Trust to me; I'll have one ready for you against you come back this time."

"No, please don't! pray don't!" cried Lucy, clasping her hands in feeble-minded distress.

"In this neighborhood--one of the right sort."

"I am so happy as I am."

"You will be happier when you are quite a slave, and so I shall save you from being snapped up by some country wiseacre, and marry you into our own set."

"Merchant princes," suggested Lucy, demurely, having just recovered her breath and what little sauce there was in her.

"Yes, merchant princes--the men of the age--the men who could buy all the acres in the country without feeling it--the men who make this little island great, and a woman happy, by letting her have everything her heart can desire."

"You mean everything that money can buy."

"Of course. I said so, didn't I?"

"So, then, you are tired of me in the house?" remonstrated Lucy, sadly.

"No, ingrate; but you will be sure to marry soon or late."

"No, I will not, if I can possibly help it."

"But you can't help it; you are not the character to help it. The first man that comes to you and says: 'I know you rather dislike me'

(you could not hate anybody, Lucy,) 'but if you don't take me I shall die of a broken fiddlestick,' you will whine out, 'Oh, dear! shall you? Well, then, sooner than disoblige you, here--take me!'"

"Am I so weak as this?" asked Lucy, coloring, and the water coming into her eyes.

"Don't be offended," said the other, coolly; "we won't call it weakness, but excess of complaisance; you can't say no to anybody."