My third disenchantment was more serious. At the ringing of the great tower bell for dinner, summoning the household and inviting all within hearing to share the hospitality of the Hall, a cavalcade swept up the avenue, consisting of the family of a neighbouring country gentleman. Lady Lucy who was seated at her embroidery frame in the drawing-chamber, was evidently not pleased at this announcement. "They always stay till dark," she said, "and question me till I am wearied to death, about what the queen wears, what the princesses eat, or how the king talks, as if their majesties were some strange foreign beasts, and I some Moorish showman hired to exhibit them. Lettice, my sweet, take them into the garden after dinner, or I shall not recover it." Yet when the ladies entered she received them with a manner as gracious as if they had been anxiously expected friends. I reasoned with myself that this graciousness was an inalienable quality of hers, as little voluntary or conscious as the soft tones of her voice; or that probably she repented of having spoken hastily of her visitors and compensated for it by being more than ordinarily kind. But when it proved that they had to leave early, and she lamented over the shortness of the visit, and yet immediately after their departure threw herself languidly on a couch, and sighed, "What a deliverance!" I involuntarily shrank from her to the farthest corner of the room, and watching the departing strangers, wished myself departing with them. I stood there long, until she came gently to me and laid her hand kindly on my head. I looked up at her, and longed to look straight into her heart. "Tears on the long lashes!" said she, caressingly. "What is the matter, little one?" My eyelids sank and the tears fell. "What ails thee, little silent woman?" said she, stooping to me. I threw my arms around her and sobbed, "You are _really_ glad to have me, Lady Lucy; are you not? You would not like me to go?" She seemed at first perplexed. "You take things too much to heart, Olive, like your poor mother," she said at last, very gently. "Those ladies are nothing to me; and your mother was dear to me, Olive, and so are you." But in the evening when I was in bed she came herself into my little chamber, and sat by my bedside, like Aunt Gretel, and played with my long hair in her sweet way; and then before she left, said tenderly,-- "My poor little Olive, you must not doubt your mother's old friend. I am not all, or half I would be, but I could not bear to be distrusted by you. But you have lived too much shut up in a world of your own. You wear your heart too near the surface. You bring heart and conscience into things which only need courtesy and tactics. You waste your gold where beads and copper are as valuable. I must be courteous to my enemies, little one, and gracious to people who weary me to death; but to you I give a bit of my heart, and that is quite a different thing."