"Rose," said Miss Marjoribanks, "how are you ever to be an artist if you do not know life? That is just the very reason why you ought to go out into the world; and I don't see, for my part, that it matters whether it is pleasant or not. To practise scales all day long is anything but pleasant, but then one has to do it, you know. I don't blame you," said Lucilla, with tender condescension. "You are a dear little thing, and you don't know any better; but _I_ went through Political Economy, and learnt all about that;--you don't think _I_ choose it for the pleasure? But you all know what is the object of my life, and I hope I am not one to shrink from my duty," Miss Marjoribanks added. And it was difficult to reply to such a sublime declaration. Little Rose left her friend with the conviction that it was her duty, too, to sacrifice herself for the benefit of society and the advancement of art. Such were the lofty sentiments elicited naturally, as enthusiasm responds to enthusiasm, by Lucilla's self-devotion. Already, although she was not much more than twenty, she had the consoling consciousness that she had wrought a great work in Carlingford; and if Miss Marjoribanks required a little sacrifice from her assistants, she did not shrink from making the same in her own person, as has been shadowed forth in the case of Mr Cavendish, and as will yet, in the course of this history, be still more seriously and even sadly evolved. Three weeks had passed in this way, making it still more and more visible to Lucilla how much she had lost in losing Mr Cavendish, of whom nothing as yet had been heard, when suddenly, one day, about luncheon-time, at the hour when Miss Marjoribanks was known to be at home, the drawing-room door opened without any warning, and the missing man walked in. It was thus that Lucilla herself described the unexpected apparition, which appeared to her to have dropped from the clouds. She avowed afterwards to Mrs Chiley that his entrance was so utterly unexpected, so noiseless, and without warning, that she felt quite silly, and could not tell in the least how she behaved; though the friends of Miss Marjoribanks, it is to be hoped, are too well acquainted with her promptitude of mind and action to imagine that she in any way compromised herself even under the surprise of the moment. As for Mr Cavendish, he exhibited a certain mixture of timidity and excitement which it was remarkable, and indeed rather flattering for any lady to see, in such an accomplished man of the world. Lucilla was not a person to deceive herself, nor did she want experience in such matters, as has been already shown; but it would be vain to deny that the conviction forced upon her mind by the demeanour of her visitor was that it was a man _about to propose_ who thus made his unlooked-for appearance before her. She confessed afterwards to her confidential friend that he had all the signs of it in his looks and manners. "He gave that little nervous