Lady Haredale did not dress too youthfully, or try to keep her beautiful daughter in the background; on the contrary, everything was arranged to make a good time for Amethyst; Lady Haredale chose her dresses with the utmost care, and taught her how to arrange them becomingly, with so outspoken a delight in the girl's beauty as almost rendered her flattery harmless. Those were happy weeks. Now and then came little shocks and startling incidents; but they fell on unheeding ears. A very few words are enough to tell Amethyst's story. She and Lucian Leigh fell in love with each other; suddenly, rapturously, without delay or misgiving, almost at the first sight of each other's fair faces, almost with the first sense of an answering stir in each other's souls, Lucian courted her in a quiet but most unmistakable fashion; and soon, life for Amethyst meant his presence, his words and looks. She was carried off her feet, caught out of herself. Even as she knew "what made the assembly shine" for her, she was well assured that she "made the ball fine" for him. She did not remain unconscious or ignorant of what had befallen her. Love did not come to her with slow, cautious, and imperceptible footsteps, he caught her in a sweet frenzy, which left no space for misgivings; while her quickly answering warmth probably hastened and intensified the passion, which might have seemed alien to Lucian's slower and shyer nature. A few social meetings and games of tennis together--one or two encounters "by chance," which yet were so important that it seemed as if the whole course of life must have been arranged to bring them about--a sunny Sunday or two, in the same church, singing the same hymns--a belief in each other's goodness, so that no misgivings troubled their joy in each other's charms, scraps of talk--wonderful glances--the county ball, where Amethyst's success woke Lucian to the sudden fear of rivalry, and where the world began to say that she was a great beauty--a dance the next night at a neighbour's house--a long, long waltz together, then, dim lights, heavy-scented flowers, a wonderful sense of being alone, after the crowd of dancers; then feelings found words, words hardly needed, his arms were round her, his kiss on her lips, and, after scarcely a doubt or a fear, in three short weeks, in a dozen meetings, Amethyst's heart was won, her promise given, and all her story, as she believed, told. But, with the actual promise given, with the spoken words, Lucian, at any rate, woke up to a sense of real life, and of what it behoved him to do. "To-morrow I must come to Lord Haredale. I hope he won't kick me down-stairs." "Why should he be angry? We are not doing wrong.--That is--ought I to have told mother first?--Was it too quick?" faltered Amethyst, crimson and trembling with sudden misgiving.