"Hush, oh hush, Nancy," Lucilla said, as she sank back in her chair; but Miss Marjoribanks, after all, was only human, and she was not so distressed by these unpolished epithets as she might or perhaps ought to have been. "Poor Barbara! I wish she could only look a little bit like a lady," she said to herself; and so proceeded with her preparations for the evening. She had all her plans matured, and she felt quite comfortable about that evening which all her friends were thinking would be rather trying for Lucilla. To tell the truth, when a thing became rather trying, Lucilla's spirits rose. Mr Cavendish's desertion was, perhaps, on the whole, more than compensated for by the exhilaration of a difficulty to be encountered. She too began to forecast, like her father, the possibilities of the evening, and to think of Mr Cavendish coming in to dinner when there was nobody to support him, and not even a crowd of people to retire among. Would he run the risk of coming, under the circumstances? or, if he came, would he prostrate himself as he had done on a previous occasion, and return to his allegiance? This question roused Lucilla to a degree of energy unusual even to her who was always energetic. It was then that the brilliant idea struck her of adjourning to the garden in the evening--a practice which was received with such enthusiasm in Carlingford, where the gardens were so pretty. She put on her hat directly and went downstairs, and called the gardener to consult him about it; and it was thus that she was employed when Mrs Chiley rang the bell at the garden gate. If it had been anybody else in Carlingford, Lucilla would have led her back again to the house, and said nothing about the subject of her conference with the gardener; for it is always best, as all judicious persons are aware, not to forestall these little arrangements which make so agreeable a surprise at the moment; but then Mrs Chiley was Miss Marjoribanks's special confidant. The old lady had her face full of business that bright morning. She listened to what her young friend proposed, but without hearing it, and said. "Oh, yes, my dear, I am sure it will be charming," without the very least notion what it was she applauded. "Let us go in and sit down a moment, for I have something to say to you, Lucilla," Mrs Chiley said; and when they had reached the drawing-room and shut the door, the Colonel's wife gave her favourite a kiss, and looked anxiously in her face. "You have not been to see me since Monday," said Mrs Chiley. "I am sure you are not well, or you could not have stayed away so long; but if you did not feel equal to going out, why did you not send for me, Lucilla, my poor dear?" Though Miss Marjoribanks's thoughts at that moment were full of the garden, and not in the least occupied with those more troublesome matters which procured for her Mrs Chiley's sympathy, she placed the kind old lady in the most easy chair, and sat down by her, as Mrs Chiley