"Don't say absurd things. She is. And she is not fit society for your sisters." "If they were only half as worthy of her society as she is superior to them, they would be very different girls from what they are," spoke Travice, with a touch of his father's old heat. "If there's one thing that Lucy is, pre-eminently, it's a gentlewoman. Her mother was one before her." Mrs. Arkell grew nearly black in the face. While she was trying to speak, Travice went on. "Ask my father what his opinion of Lucy is. _He_ does not say she is here too much." "Your father is a fool in some things, and so are you!" retorted Mrs. Arkell, a sort of scream in her voice. "How dare you oppose me in this way, Travice?" "I am very sorry to do so," returned the young man; "and I beg your pardon if I say more than you think I ought. But I cannot join in your unjust feeling against Lucy, and I will not tolerate it. I wish you would not bring up this subject at all: it is one we never can agree upon." "You requested me just now not to 'bring up' the subject of Miss Fauntleroy to you," said Mrs. Arkell, in a tone of irony. "How many other subjects would you be pleased to interdict?" "I don't want to hear even the name of those Fauntleroys!" burst out Travice, losing for a moment his equanimity. "Great brazen milkmaids!" "No! you'd rather hear Lucy's!" screamed Mrs. Arkell. "You'd----" "Lucy! Don't name them with Lucy, my dear mother. They are not fit to tie Lucy's shoes! She has more sense of propriety in her little finger, than they have in all their great overgrown bodies!" This was the climax. And Mrs. Arkell, suppressing the passion that shook her as she stood, spoke with that forced calmness that is worse than the loudest fury. Her face had turned white. "Continue your familiar intercourse with that girl, if you will; but, listen!--you shall never make a wife of anyone so paltry and so pitiful! I would pray Heaven to let me follow you to your grave, Travice, rather than see you marry Lucy Arkell." She spoke the words in her blind rage, never reflecting on their full import; never dreaming that a day was soon to come, when their memory would return to her in her extremity of vain and hopeless repentance. CHAPTER XII. MISCONCEPTION. "It shall be put a stop to! it shall be put a stop to!" murmured Mrs. Arkell to herself, as she sat alone when Travice had left her, trying to recover her equanimity. "Once separated from that wretched Lucy, he would soon find charms in Barbara Fauntleroy." There was no time to be lost; and that same afternoon, when Lucy arrived, according to promise, crafty Mrs. Arkell began to lay the foundation stone. Lucy found her in the drawing-room alone. "I will take my bonnet upstairs," said Lucy. "Shall I find Charlotte and Sophy anywhere?" "No," replied Mrs. Arkell, in a very uncompromising tone. "They have gone out with the Miss Fauntleroys."