A mother’s smile trembled in Mrs. Poythress’s eyes. “She is a very little diner-out,” said she. At the sound of Mrs. Poythress’s voice a shade passed over the Don’s face. “He’s the one, mumma, that built me the block-houses.” And the smile came back. Mary watched the play of the Don’s features during the triangular conversation that followed between himself, Mrs. Poythress, and Laura, and was much puzzled. Light and shadow, shadow and light, chased each other over his changeful countenance like patches of cloud across a sunny landscape. Presently, chancing to turn his head, his eyes fell upon Lucy, seated on his right, and Mary’s interest grew deeper. “You on my right and Laura on my left! I feel that I am indeed among friends.” “You may be sure of that,” said Lucy, in her low and sweet, but earnest voice. The Don’s pleasure at finding that Lucy was his neighbor at table was very obvious, and we must not blame Mary if it gave her a pang to see it. She could not but recall the stranger’s manifest interest in Lucy when he first met her, at breakfast, in Richmond. Then she had not cared. Now it was different. For the next half-hour, while contributing her share to the conversation at her end of the table, she had managed to see everything that took place between the Don and Lucy. She saw everything, and yet she seemed to herself to see nothing. The meaning of it all—that she could not unravel. All she knew was that she was miserable; and her wretchedness made her unjust. She was vexed at Lucy,—vexed for the strangest of reasons; but the human heart—if the plagiarism may be pardoned—is full of inconsistencies. Had Lucy made eyes at the Don, coquetted with him, Mary would doubtless have thought it unkind on her part; though that would have been unjust, as Lucy had no cause to suspect that her friend felt any special interest in the mysterious stranger. It was the entire absence of everything of this kind in Lucy’s manner that nettled Mary. In her eyes the Don was a hero of the first water. Why didn’t Lucy try to weave fascinations around such an one as he? What kind of a man was she looking for? Did she expect the whole world to fall at her feet, whence to choose?—or did she, perhaps,—and the thought shot through her heart with a keen pang,—did Lucy feel that the quarry was hers without an effort on her part to grasp it?