"Ah, my dear child," said Lady Haredale, "innocent things like you are very hard. What is a little fib, compared to all the misery that would follow on telling the truth? I am sure I had rather tell a thousand fibs than make my darling child unhappy." "Unfortunately, people who are accustomed to telling the truth, don't believe them," said Amethyst bitterly. "I _cannot_ tell Lucian a falsehood," she added with more emotion, "nor try to make him believe what is not true, but I can keep your secret from him if I must." Lady Haredale hesitated for a moment, and looked at the letter in her hand. Judging by herself, she did not believe for one moment, that the girl would or could be true to her in the face of Lucian's anger, and she was, in fact, in a very great difficulty. "Amethyst," she said, suddenly rising from her seat, and putting on a grand manner, which was new to her daughter, "Lucian has behaved very ill; you are too ignorant of the world to know how much he has insulted you by refusing to believe your first denial. If he does not give in at once and entirely, without demanding any explanations at all, I shall insist on the engagement being broken off. I won't have you sacrificed to a man with a suspicious, jealous temper. And, remember, if you did tell him that you had messages from me, if he is of that nature, and once thinks you have been too intimate with poor Tony, it would make no difference, because, you know, it is no proof against it. If he and his mother think you were indiscreet, they will think so, and never forget it." "Then, mother," said Amethyst, with flashing eyes, "you have been very cruel to me, in setting me to do such a compromising thing." "My darling, it is impossible to calculate on the fads of countrified and _bornes_ people, like the Leighs. How could I think such ideas would occur to them?" "I am countrified too," said Amethyst, "and I think they are quite right." "Ah, my dear," said Lady Haredale, "you think so now. But depend upon it, you will feel differently when you are a little older. I know what it is, and Lucian and his people would make you miserable. He'll never understand you, and you would break your heart in trying to content him. I never ought to have let him have you." "Mother, do you want us to be parted?" cried Amethyst, in despair.