"She was afraid to tell me in plain words.--I never saw her afraid before, but she was afraid. She has been arranging my future for me, and it does not occur to her that I dare object. That is because she knows I am a coward, and despises me for it--and it is what I deserve. If I make the marriage she chooses, she thinks Mr. Binnie will leave me his money. I am to run after a man who does not care for me, and make myself attractive, in the hope that he will condescend to marry me because Mr. Binnie may leave me his money. Do you wonder that it took even Lady Theobald a long time to say that?" "Well," remarked Octavia, "you won't do it, I suppose. I wouldn't worry. She wants you to marry Mr. Barold, I suppose." Lucia started. "How did you guess?" she exclaimed. "Oh! I always knew it. I didn't guess." And she smiled ever so faintly. "That is one of the reasons why she loathes me so," she added. Lucia thought deeply for a moment: she recognized, all at once, several things she had been mystified by before. "Oh, it is! It is!" she said. "And she has thought of it all the time, when I never suspected her." Octavia smiled a little again. Lucia sat thinking, her hands clasped tightly. "I am glad I came here," she said, at length. "I _am_ angry now, and I see things more clearly. If she had only thought of it because Mr. Binnie came, I could have forgiven her more easily; but she has been making coarse plans all the time, and treating me with contempt. Octavia," she added, turning upon her, with flushing cheeks and sparkling eyes, "I think that, for the first time in my life, I am in a passion,--a real passion. I think I shall never be afraid of her any more." Her delicate nostrils were dilated, she held her head up, her breath came fast. There was a hint of exultation in her tone. "Yes," she said, "I am in a passion. And I am not afraid of her at all. I will go home and tell her what I think." And it is quite probable that she would have done so, but for a trifling incident which occurred before she reached her ladyship.