“Oh, no, not that--too good--too good.” “Lionel, go away; we don’t want you just now. Liddy has something to tell me.” “It is better that I should tell you for her, mother. She will not let the secret be kept a day. I wanted to put off till--we parted: in case you should be, as she thinks, displeased: though I can’t believe you will be displeased.” “Lionel!” Of course, from the time he had begun to speak Lady Brotherton had perceived but too well what the secret was. She loosed her hold of Lydia’s hand, which lay white and passive in her lap after she had withdrawn hers, with a kind of appeal in it. Lady Brotherton’s colour went and came. Hard words came to her lips; but she looked at her son’s face and paused. “I am displeased, more than displeased; and your father will never consent to it,” she said. Lydia did not say a word, but she sighed and took her hand away, to clasp it with the other in that pathetic gesture, “the trick of grief,” which she had learned from her mother. As for Lionel, an only son and spoilt child, he took matters with a high hand. “My father will consent gladly enough if you consent, mother,” he said; “and what did you expect? You have thrown us together constantly for five months. You must think me a wretched creature if you thought I could not manage to persuade her to like me--a little, with all the opportunities we have had.” “It is not that,” said Lady Brotherton, with simplicity, falling into the snare, “any girl might like you; of course there is nothing wonderful in that.” “And, you see,” he said, “unfortunately I loved her--before we ever started at all.” “Before! and why didn’t you warn me? and I who have been saying you were so safe, and never thought of each other. Liddy! Liddy! you have deceived me! You would never look at him, never amuse yourself as you did with the others, you were always so serious! And pray was it going on all the time, and was that only dust thrown in my eyes?” “I have never deceived anyone,” Liddy said, with a proud elevation of her head. She could not say, even in her own defence, what the cause of her serious treatment of her lover was. “And how was it settled at last?” Lady Brotherton said. “Since we started? She has never been away from me night or day.” This produced a slight flicker of suppressed laughter even in Lydia’s depressed bosom. “She did not leave the deck till we were in harbour this morning; I kept her by force,” Lionel said. “Well, that is the most wonderful of all,” cried the not hard-hearted mother; “did you get into your berth by the port-hole? for I declare I never closed my eyes all night, you know I never do--and I never once missed you. I believe you have dreamed it all,” Lady Brotherton said. CHAPTER XVI. AT HOME.