"I suppose so," with the slightest possible shrug. "Miss Costello, if you are disengaged, will you dance this quadrille with me?"

Lucia turned when he spoke. The same deep crimson flush came to her face as when their eyes had first met that morning. She felt angry with him for asking her, and with Maurice for having left her free. She longed to say to him some of the civil impertinences women can use to men they dislike, but she was too great a novice, and found no better expedient than to accept the invitation as coolly as it was given. Probably, however, Mr. Percy attributed her blush to a cause very different from its real one; or else there was something soothing and agreeable in finding himself in possession of incomparably the prettiest partner in the room, for he began almost immediately to feel less bored, and positively roused himself to the extent of making some exertion to please his reluctant companion.

Now, it was all very well for Lucia to be cross, and to nurse her crossness to the last possible minute, but a girl of sixteen, however pretty and however spoiled, is not generally gifted with sufficient strength of mind or badness of temper, to remain quite insensible to the good qualities of a handsome man, who evidently wishes to make himself agreeable to her. When the man in question is the lion of the day, probably his success becomes inevitable; at all events, Lucia gradually recovered her good humour, and kept up her part of the broken chat possible under the circumstances, with enough grace and spirit to give to her extraordinary beauty the last crowning charm which Percy had not, until then, found in it.

Thus they finished their quadrille in good humour with each other, but as they left their place to rejoin Mrs. Bellairs, Maurice Leigh came into the room by a side door. The sight of him reminded Mr. Percy of the short dialogue he had heard.

"You are engaged for the next quadrille, are you not?" he asked Lucia.

"Yes, to Maurice. I promised it to him instead of the first."

"You were to have danced this one with him, then?"

She laughed. "It is a childish arrangement of ours," she said; "we agreed, long ago, always to dance the first quadrille together, and everybody knows of it, so no one asks me for that."

"I wonder at his being willing to miss his privilege to-night; you must be very indulgent, not to punish him."

"Oh! you know he is acting as a kind of steward to-night and has so many things to do. It was not his fault."

"And you would have waited patiently for him?"

"Patiently? I don't know. Certainly I should have waited, for no one but a stranger would have asked me to dance."

"I hope, however, you forgive me."

They had reached Mrs. Bellair's, and she only answered by a smile as she sat down. A minute after, she was carried off by another partner, and Mr. Percy took possession of the vacant place.

The evening passed on. At the end of it, Mr. Percy, shut up in his own room, surprised himself in the midst of a reverie the subject of which was Lucia Costello; he actually found himself comparing her with a certain Lady Adeliza Weymouth, of whom he had been supposed to be épris the season before. But then Lady Adeliza had no particular claim to beauty; she was "distinguished" and of a powerful family; as for Lucia, on the other hand, she was——There! it was no use going off into that question. A great deal more sense to go to bed.

Meantime Lucia, under Maurice's escort, was on her way home. They had started, talking gaily enough, but before half the distance was passed they grew silent.

After a long pause Maurice asked, "Are you very tired?"

Lucia's meditation had carried her so far away that she started at the sound of his voice.

"Tired? oh, no! At least not very much."

"And you have enjoyed the day after all?"

"Pretty well. Not much, I think."

"I thought you looked happy enough this evening. Come, confess you are glad you did not stay at home."

"Indeed, I will not; mamma, I am sure, wished me to stay?"

"Yet she made you come."

"Yes, because she thought I wanted to do so. Maurice, do you think she looks ill?"

"No, I have not noticed it. Does she complain?"

"Mamma complain! A thing she never does. But it seems to me that something is different. I can't tell what. She goes out less than ever, and seems to dislike my leaving her." Lucia longed to say, "She has some trouble; some heavy anxiety; can you guess what it is?" but she had an instinctive consciousness, that even to this dear and tried friend, she ought not to speak of a subject on which Mrs. Costello was invariably silent. Even to herself, a certain darkness hung over her mother's past life; there were years of it of which she felt utterly ignorant. Whatever was the cloud of the present, it might be connected with the recollections of those years; this thought checked her even while she spoke.

Whether Maurice had any similar reason for reticence or not, he only said, "I do not think she would hide anything from you which need give you uneasiness. I advise you not to torment yourself causelessly."

"I am not tormenting myself; but I think yours is a miserable plan. You would have people feel no sympathy for the troubles of others, unless they can be paraded in so many words."

"Decidedly you must be very tired, or you would take the trouble to understand me better."

He put down his whip, to draw her cloak more closely round her, for the dewy night air was chill, but she pushed it away.

"I am quite warm, thank you. How long the road seems to-night! Shall we ever be at home?"

"We are almost there. See, that is your own acacia-tree."

"I am so glad. Don't turn up the lane. I can run up there perfectly well by myself."

"Indeed you will not. Sit still, if you please."

"How tiresome you are, Maurice! You treat me just as if I were a baby."

"Do I? A bad habit, I suppose. I will try to cure myself."

His tone was so quiet, so free from either ridicule or anger, that she grew more impatient still.

"Now pray do let me get out. I can see Mr. Leigh's light burning still, as well as mamma's. They must both be tired of waiting. Why does your father always sit up for you, Maurice? Is he afraid to trust you?"

"Lucia!" His tone was angry now, and silenced her. In another minute they stopped at the gate of the cottage.

Mrs. Costello had heard the sound of their wheels, and instantly opened the door. Lucia's half-formed intention of making some kind of apology for her petulance, had no time to ripen. Maurice helped her down without speaking, bade her good night, exchanged a word or two with her mother, and drove slowly away again.

Mother and daughter went in together to Lucia's room; but Mrs. Costello, noticing that her child looked pale and weary, left her almost immediately. Lucia instantly flew to the window. The farmhouse where Mr. Leigh and Maurice lived was so near that the lights in its different windows could be plainly distinguished. After a moment, the one which had been burning steadily as they passed the house, flickered suddenly, disappeared, and then, shone more brightly through the opening door.

"He is at home," said Lucia to herself. "Poor Maurice, how good he is! What on earth made me so cross?"

She continued to watch. Presently the light which had returned to the sitting-room vanished altogether, and a fainter gleam stole out from what she knew to be the window of Maurice's room. She said "Good-night" softly, as if he could hear