The next morning she jokingly repeated her dream to Emma. “Oh! Lucy,” exclaimed Emma, “what a charming dream! And you know mamma says, if you marry, I may come out at seventeen, and, if you don’t, I must stay in this poky school-room till I am eighteen. You never can refuse Lord Montreville.” CHAPTER VI. “A l’age où j’étais on n’a pas le courage de résister à tout le monde, je crus ee qu’on me disait tant par docilité que par persuasion; je me laissai entraîner, je fis ce qu’on me disait, j’étais dans une émotion qui avait arrêté toutes mes pensées; les autres decidèrent de mon sort, et je ne fus moi-même qu’une spectatrice stupide de l’engagement éternel que je pris.”—MARIVAUX. What with the jests of others and her mother’s counsels, both open and implied, Lucy had no doubt of Lord Montreville’s intentions. The whole affair seemed only to depend upon herself. What was her surprise when at seven o’clock, instead of Lord Montreville, a note arrived, apologising for his absence, on the plea that he had been summoned away upon business. Lucy thought lovers were to be devoted things, who were to have no business but that of gaining their lady’s favour. There was a party that day, and she saw people looked surprised at hearing Lord Montreville was gone away so suddenly, and she felt a little mortified. “I am certainly in love,” she thought, “for every thing seems dull to-day. Yes, it is all a blank now he is gone (how much is implied by the simple pronoun _he_ or _she_); just as Milly said when John was gone to the back woods, and she was left at Halifax.” The resemblance between her situation and feelings, and those of Milly, would not have been so evident to others. Several days elapsed, and nothing was heard of Lord Montreville. His saddle-horses were seen to pass towards London with their horse-cloths packed upon their saddles, in travelling costume. Lucy thought he was certainly gone quite away, without proposing, and she felt acute pangs of mortification and disappointment. She was ready to cut out her tongue for having, of her own accord, spoken to Milly of her prospects in life, when those prospects were evidently mere conjurings of her own self-conceit; she could have beat herself for having repeated her foolish dream to Emma, who had repeated it to Mary, who had repeated it to the governess, who had made Lucy blush more than once by her allusions to it,—she could cry at thinking how faintly she had rebutted Bell Stopford’s innuendoes, and she worked herself up to a state of soreness and agitation, not unlike that which might be produced by the tender passion itself.