“Lewis--Lewis!” she cried, hastily; then stopped. Had she been about to warn him to say no more, to stop him in the revelation of his wishes? but if so she changed her mind, and looked at him eagerly, alarmed, and wringing her hands. “You know what it is,” he said, with a smile, turning to her. “I don’t need to say it, do I? If I cannot have Lucy, what is everything else worth to me? I know I am not her equal in birth, if you still think that matters, beyond everything else. But does it, does it? No one else can have thought of her so long and constantly as I have done. I know all her tastes, her ways. What she likes I like--and her brother, you know, Lady Curtis--has been all I have known for a brother.” “I know, I know,” she said, and the tears in her eyes were not now tears of pleasure. She shook her head while she looked at him with motherly tenderness, through her wet eyelashes. “And you have been the best brother to him, the kindest!” she cried. “Alas!” but with all she shook her head. “I did not mean to set up any claim on that score,” he said, quickly; “but because there has been this constant affection between us, and I have never thought of any other woman. All the rest of the world has been naught to me by the side of Lucy. I have thought of no one but her. And is this all nothing, my lady, worse than nothing, because my grandfather was a tradesman? It seems hard, don’t you think it is hard, difficult to bear?” “Lewis, you know it is not so everywhere,” she cried. “There are gentlemen in England--the best in the land, who would give their daughter to you, Lewis Durant, good as you are known to be, the truest gentleman, and rejoice in her happiness!” She paused, and her voice fell, and once more she shook her head. “But Sir John--” “If I have your help, my lady, I will not be afraid of Sir John,” he said, “he is not like you; but he is good to the bottom of his heart, good all through and through.” “Lewis!” cried my lady, with sudden emotion, “do you want me to be in love with you as well as Lucy? So he is, my dear boy; so he is, my dear prejudiced narrow-minded old man! he does not understand always--but he is good, as you say, all good, and no guile in him. But what has that to do with it after all, my poor boy?” she added, dropping from her enthusiasm, and shaking her head once more. “He is fond of you too, and that does not matter either; you will never get him to see it, never! I know him better than you do.” “If you will be on my side he will come to see it,” said Durant. She made him no direct reply, but hurried on.