“Do you wish me to tell Lord Montreville that, although you may have seemed to prefer his society to that of others, you do not in fact prefer him, and that therefore you must decline the offer he is so flattering as to make you. Shall I say so?” “No, mamma; I should be very sorry, I am sure.” “Then you wish me to say yes?” “I suppose I do, mamma.” “Well, my love, I think you have decided very wisely for yourself, and no girl ever had more reason to be delighted with her prospects. You have been selected from all the rest of your sex by a man who has been universally reckoned most fascinating and irresistible, and whom all the ladies were in love with, when he was only a younger brother; and now that he has a noble fortune, and high rank, and might choose from all the first beauties in the land, he picks out my little Lucy, who is crying like a child, at having got—just the very thing she was ready to cry because she thought she should not get, for I saw your face this morning when the note came.” Lucy smiled through her tears; the picture of the conquest she had made was agreeable to her self-love, and the picture of her inconsistency was undeniably true. Mrs. Heckfield kissed her, and hastened to Colonel Heckfield to communicate the important intelligence. CHAPTER VII. Oh, never may the hope that lights thine eyes, Sweet maid, be changed to disappointment’s gloom; Never th’ ingenuous frolic laugh I prize To the forced smile that care must oft assume; But may the blissful dream of thy young heart,— That dream from which so many wake too late,— Of joys that love requited shall impart, Be realised in thy approaching fate! Colonel Heckfield was a quiet, easy, amiable man, whom everybody loved. He was in the habit of thinking his wife understood such matters better than he did, and that as she had hitherto married all his girls extremely well, there was no need of his interference. He always considered the affair as appertaining to Mrs. Heckfield, and never felt as if his daughters had any other share in the whole transaction, than that of being the instruments employed by Mrs. Heckfield’s master-hand. So much did he look upon her as the principal, that he was once heard to say, “when my wife married Sir Charles Selcourt—” The happy mother proceeded to inform Mademoiselle Hirondelle of the high honours which awaited her pupil. “Ah, madame, I thought well when Miss Lucy had such a bad headache yesterday _que c’était l’objet_. Miss Lucy was in anger with me, but I had reason. I know myself what it is _de se consumer dans l’absence_.” Mrs. Heckfield dreaded the history of mademoiselle’s faithless lover, the bookseller at Caen, who had not written to her for three years, seven months, and three weeks, and she hastened to tell Emma that she might now look forward to coming out very soon. “And I shall go to Almack’s with Lucy, after all, mamma?”