"And, pray, who is Mrs. Wilson?"

"My nurse. She tells me 'it is five years since she has seen me, and she is wearying to see me.' What a droll expression, 'wearying.'"

"Ah!" said David Dodd.

"You have heard the word before, Mr. Dodd?"

"No, I can't say I have; but I know what it must mean."

"Lying becalmed at the equator, eh! Dodd?" said Bazalgette, misunderstanding him.

"Mrs. Wilson tells me she has taken a farm a few miles from this."

"Interesting intelligence," said Mrs. Bazalgette.

"And she says she is coming over to see me one of these days, aunt,"

said Lucy, with a droll expression, half arch, half rueful. She added timidly, "There is no objection to that, is there?"

"None whatever, if she does not make a practice of it; only mind, these old servants are the greatest pests on earth."

"I remember now," said Lucy thoughtfully, "Mrs. Wilson was always very fond of me. I cannot think why, though."

"No more can I," said Mr. Hardie, dryly; "she must be a thoroughly unreasonable woman."

Mr. Hardie said this with a good deal of grace and humor, and a laugh went round the table.

"I mean she only saw me at intervals of several years."

"Why, Lucy, what an antiquity you are making yourself," said Fountain.

But Lucy was occupied with her puzzle. "She calls me her nursling,"

said Lucy, _sotto voce,_ to her aunt, but, of course, quite audibly to the rest of the company; "her dear nursling;" and says, "she would walk fifty miles to see me. Nursling? hum! there is another word I never heard, and I do not exactly know--Then she says--"

_"Taisez-vous, pet.i.te sotte!"_ said Mrs. Bazalgette, in a sharp whisper, so admirably projected that it was intelligible only to the ear it was meant for.

Lucy caught it and stopped short, and sat looking by main force calm and dignified, but scarlet, and in secret agony. "I have said something amiss," thought Lucy, and was truly wretched.

"We don't believe in Mrs. Wilson's affection on this side the table,"

said Mr. Hardie; "but her revelations interest us, for they prove that Miss Fountain had a beginning. Now we had thought she rose from the foam like Venus, or sprung from Jove's brow like Minerva, or descended from some ancient pedestal, flawless as the Parian itself."

"What, sir," cried Bazalgette, furiously, "did you think our niece was built in a day? So fair a structure, so accomplished a--"

"Will you be quiet, good people?" said Mrs. Bazalgette. "She was born, she was bred, she was brought up, in which I had a share, and she is a very good girl, if you gentlemen will be so good as not to spoil her for me with your flattery."

"There!" said Lucy, courageously, enforcing her aunt's thunderbolt; and she leaned toward Mrs. Bazalgette, and shot back a glance of defiance, with arching neck, at Mr. Bazalgette.

After breakfast she ran to Mrs. Bazalgette. "What was it?"

"Oh, nothing; only the gentlemen were beginning to grin."

"Oh, dear! did I say anything--ridiculous?"

"No, because I stopped you in time. Mind, Lucy, it is never safe to read letters out from people in that cla.s.s of life; they talk about everything, and use words that are quite out of date. I stopped you because I know you are a simpleton, and so I could not tell what might pop out next."

"Oh, thank you, aunt--thank you," cried Lucy, warmly. "Then I did not expose myself, after all."

"No, no; you said nothing that might not be proclaimed at St. Paul's Cross--ha! ha!"

"Am I a simpleton, aunt?" inquired Lucy, in the tone of an indifferent person seeking knowledge.

"Not you," replied this oblivious lady. "You know a great deal more than most girls of your age. To be sure, girls that have been at a fashionable school generally manage to learn one or two things you have no idea of."

"Naturally."

"As you say--he! he! But you make up for it, my dear, in other respects. If the gentlemen take you for a pane of gla.s.s, why, all the better; meantime, shall I tell you your real character? I have only just discovered it myself."

"Oh, yes, aunt, tell me my character. I should so like to hear it from you."

"Should you?" said the other, a little satirically; "well, then, you are an INNOCENT FOX."

"Aunt!"

"An in-no-cent fox; so run and get your work-box. I want you to run up a tear in my flounce."

Lucy went thoughtfully for her workbox, murmuring ruefully, "I am an innocent fox--I am an in-nocent fox."

She did not like her new character at all; it mortified her, and seemed self-contradictory as well as derogatory.

On her return she could not help remonstrating: "How can that be my character? A fox is cunning, and I despise cunning; and _I am sure_ I am not _innocent,"_ added she, putting up both hands and looking penitent. With all this, a shade of vexation was painted on her lovely cheeks as she appealed against her epigram.

Mrs. Bazalgette (with the calm, inexorable superiority of matron despotism). "You are an in-nocent fox!! Is your needle threaded? Here is the tear; no, not there. I caught against the flowerpot frame, and I'll swear I heard my gown go. Look lower down, dear. Don't give it up."

All which may perhaps remind the learned and sneering reader of another fox--the one that "had a wound, and he could not tell where."

They rode out to-day as usual, and David had the equivocal pleasure of seeing them go from the door.

Lucy was one of the first down, and put her hand on the saddle, and looked carelessly round for somebody to put her up. David stepped hastily forward, his heart beating, seized her foot, never waited for her to spring, but went to work at once, and with a powerful and sustained effort raised her slowly and carefully like a dead weight, and settled her in the saddle. His gripe hurt her foot. She bore it like a Spartan sooner than lose the amus.e.m.e.nt of his simplicity and enormous strength, so drolly and unnecessarily exerted. It cost her a little struggle not to laugh right out, but she turned her head away from him a moment and was quit for a spasm. Then she came round with a face all candor.

"Thank you, Mr. Dodd," said she, demurely; and her eyes danced in her head. Her foot felt encircled with an iron band, but she bore him not a grain of malice for that, and away she cantered, followed by his longing eyes.

David bore the separation well. "To-morrow morning I shall have her all to myself," said he. He played with Kenealy and Reginald, and chatted with Bazalgette. In the evening she was surrounded as usual, and he obtained only a small share of her attention. But the thought of the morrow consoled him. He alone knew that she walked before breakfast.

The next morning he rose early, and sauntered about till eight o'clock, and then he came on the lawn and waited for her. She did not come. He waited, and waited, and waited. She never came. His heart died within him. "She avoids me," said he; "it is not accident. I have driven her out of her very garden; she always walked here before breakfast (she said so) till I came and spoiled her walk; Heaven forgive me."

David could not flatter himself that this interruption of her acknowledged habit was accidental. On the other hand, how kind and cheerful she had been with him on the same spot yesterday morning. To judge by her manner, his company on her quarter-deck was not unwelcome to her yet she kept her room to-day, from the window of which she could probably see him walking to and fro, longing for her. The bitter disappointment was bad enough, but here tormenting perplexity as to its cause was added, and between the two the pining heart was racked.