“And all the more since we have had this disappointment with Arthur. If Arthur had married happily as we liked--as young Seymour has done--things might have been different. But now that Arthur has made such shipwreck, Lucy is all that is left to us. He will not let her speak to anyone whom he thinks inferior to her. He has almost shut the house even to his nephew Bertie; he would prefer even that she did not marry at all.” “All this will not alarm me,” he said, keeping his eyes upon her, “if you are on my side.” “Think!” she said, not paying any attention; “think how bad it is for us in the county. Arthur thrown away upon a--worse than nobody: a foolish girl who has not even the wit to hold by him and make him happy--our only son! and Lucy our only daughter, if she too were to--” “Marry a nobody!” he said, with a smile, which he could not divest of some bitterness. “Ah, Lady Curtis! that was what I feared--you are not on my side.” “Lewis, only think!” she said; “put yourself in my place! I have been so proud of my children; perhaps it was foolish, heaven knows one always suffers for it; but if neither of them--neither of them! is to--have any _succès_ in marriage, make any brilliant connection. Yes, yes,” she said, “it is contemptible, I know it, you have a right to scorn me; but, Lewis, put yourself in my place.” “I do,” he said; “and if I could I would grudge Lucy to a nobody as much as you do; but is all my happiness to go for that, my lady? I dare not speak of hers,” he said, faltering, “if I could hope that her happiness was concerned, what secondary consideration in the world could be put by the side of that?” Lady Curtis shook her head. She clasped and unclasped her hands, with the nervousness of agitation. “It is easy for you to say that,” she cried, “very easy for you at your stage; but happiness is not everything--happiness is not all I have to look to,” and as she spoke, there flashed across Lady Curtis’s mind a realization of the time when she should hear her daughter called Mrs. Durant, and listen to the anxious explanations of society, as to how old Durant the saddler, was not her father, but her grandfather-in-law. How could she bear it, how could she bear it? she who had in imagination seen her pretty daughter the admired of all admirers, at the height of splendour and fashion, and with a better title than her mother’s. No, no, no; it was not to be tolerated. She could never permit it! whatever traitors might fight in her bosom for Lewis and his rights. “This is how it is then,” he said, sadly, “it is you, my friend, my kindest patroness and guide, you who have been the help to me that only such as you could be--that reject me, _my_ lady? Why should I claim you as _my_ lady--or use such a familiar term at all?” “Lewis, don’t be cruel to me,” she cried. “I am not cruel. It is only that it is you, and not Sir John, who rejects me,” he said.