“Mother,” he said, quite abruptly, throwing himself into one of the dining-room arm-chairs, “I have a thing to tell you.” His mother at once knew that the thing was important, and with her own peculiar motherly instinct imagined that the question to be discussed had reference to matrimony. Had her son desired to speak to her about money, his tone and look would have been different; as would also have been the case—in a different way—had he entertained any thought of a pilgrimage to Pekin, or a prolonged fishing excursion to the Hudson Bay territories. “A thing, Ludovic! well; I am quite at liberty.” “I want to know what you think of Lucy Robarts?” Lady Lufton became pale and frightened, and the blood ran cold to her heart. She had feared more than rejoiced in conceiving that her son was about to talk of love, but she had feared nothing so bad as this. “What do I think of Lucy Robarts?” she said, repeating her son’s words in a tone of evident dismay. “Yes, mother; you have said once or twice lately that you thought I ought to marry, and I am beginning to think so too. You selected one clergyman’s daughter for me, but that lady is going to do much better with herself—” “Indeed she is not,” said Lady Lufton sharply. “And therefore I rather think I shall select for myself another clergyman’s sister. You don’t dislike Miss Robarts, I hope?” “Oh, Ludovic!” It was all that Lady Lufton could say at the spur of the moment. “Is there any harm in her? Have you any objection to her? Is there anything about her that makes her unfit to be my wife?”