Lucy had pride and dignity enough not to open the secrets of her domestic wrongs, even to Milly; and exerting all her self-control, she dried her tears, and tried to smile at her silly maternal jealousy. But Milly was not so deceived. Simple as she was, the warmth of her own feelings rendered her quick-sighted in all that regarded those of others. She was sure that her lady’s lowness of spirits had some deeper source than the child’s little speech, though she was quite at a loss to divine what the cause might be. She had been so well satisfied with Lord Montreville’s love for her, when first he recovered his recollection, that she did not suspect it could be occasioned by any unkindness on his part. At this period of our story, Sir Charles and Lady Selcourt arrived at Ashdale Park. Lucy was overjoyed to see a face that reminded her of the happy days of her childhood, a person who was bound to her by ties of blood, who distinctly belonged to herself. Although not perhaps the one whose character was most congenial to her own, still she was her sister; they had played the same plays, wandered about the same fields, studied in the same school-room, had shared the same parental cares, and in the present desolate state of her feelings, her heart went forth towards Sophy with warmth. Lady Selcourt was a worldly woman, and a coquette, but she was not a common-place coquette. She never made any advances towards men; she never apparently sought them; but she dressed herself quite beautifully, and sat still with an expression of conscious charms, combined with strict propriety, which seldom failed to bring all the men in the room hovering round the sofa on which she sat. She was not witty, or learned, or talkative, but she looked very soft, and occasionally very arch; and when she did speak, implied a great deal more than she said. All girls hated her, for she occupied the gentlemen, without being so openly a flirt, that they could console themselves by thinking “any body can gain the attention of men, who will go such lengths to obtain it,” for she went no lengths. Yet most men, and all women, knew it was not simply by superior charms that she did attract them. Pretty as Lucy was, pleasing as were her good-humour and her simplicity, much as all men admired her in speaking of her, it was round Lady Selcourt that they congregated; her dress was the subject of conversation; it was to give her their arm that they rushed when dinner was announced; it was upon her cards at _écarté_ that all were anxious to bet. As the sisters were sitting one day in her boudoir, Lady Montreville remarked to Sophy that she almost wondered Sir Charles should like to see so many men fluttering around his wife, while she appeared so much more occupied with others than with him. “For Sir Charles is very fond of you, Sophy,” she added, with a sigh.