Lucy started and colored all over, and looked askant at her aunt with opening eyes, like a thoroughbred filly just going to start all across the road. Mrs. Bazalgette laid a loving hand on her shoulder, and whispered knowingly in her ear: “Trust to me; I'll have one ready for you against you come back this time.” “No, please don't! pray don't!” cried Lucy, clasping her hands in feeble-minded distress. “In this neighborhood--one of the right sort.” “I am so happy as I am.” “You will be happier when you are quite a slave, and so I shall save you from being snapped up by some country wiseacre, and marry you into our own set.” “Merchant princes,” suggested Lucy, demurely, having just recovered her breath and what little sauce there was in her. “Yes, merchant princes--the men of the age--the men who could buy all the acres in the country without feeling it--the men who make this little island great, and a woman happy, by letting her have everything her heart can desire.” “You mean everything that money can buy.” “Of course. I said so, didn't I?” “So, then, you are tired of me in the house?” remonstrated Lucy, sadly. “No, ingrate; but you will be sure to marry soon or late.” “No, I will not, if I can possibly help it.” “But you can't help it; you are not the character to help it. The first man that comes to you and says: 'I know you rather dislike me' (you could not hate anybody, Lucy,) 'but if you don't take me I shall die of a broken fiddlestick,' you will whine out, 'Oh, dear! shall you? Well, then, sooner than disoblige you, here--take me!'” “Am I so weak as this?” asked Lucy, coloring, and the water coming into her eyes. “Don't be offended,” said the other, coolly; “we won't call it weakness, but excess of complaisance; you can't say no to anybody.” “Yet I have said it,” replied Lucy, thoughtfully. “Have you? When? Oh, to me. Yes; where I am concerned you have sometimes a will of your own, and a pretty stout one; but never with anybody else.” The aunt then inquired of the niece, “frankly, now, between ourselves,” whether she had no wish to be married. The niece informed her in confidence that she had not, and was puzzled to conceive how the bare idea of marriage came to be so tempting to her sex. Of course, she could understand a lady wishing to marry, if she loved a gentleman who was determined to be unhappy without her; but that women should look about for some hunter to catch instead of waiting quietly till the hunter caught them, this puzzled her; and as for the superstitious love of females for the marriage rite in cases when it took away their liberty and gave them nothing amiable in return, it amazed her. “So, aunt,” she concluded, “if you really love me, driving me to the altar will be an unfortunate way of showing it.”