On this same afternoon, and just about the same hour, Lionel Verner was strolling through Deerham on his way to pay a visit to his mother. Close at the door he encountered Decima--well, now--and Miss Tempest, who were going out. None would have believed Lionel and Decima to be brother and sister, judging by their attire--he wore deep mourning, she had not a shred of mourning about her. Lady Verner, in her prejudice against Verner's Pride, had neither put on mourning herself for John Massingbird, nor allowed Decima to put it on. Lionel was turning with them; but Lady Verner, who had seen him from the window, sent a servant to desire him to come to her. "Is it anything particular, mother?" he hastily inquired. "I am going with Decima and Lucy." "It is so far particular, Lionel, that I wish you to stay with me, instead of going with them," answered Lady Verner. "I fancy you are getting rather fond of being with Lucy, and--and--in short, it won't do." Lionel, in his excessive astonishment, could only stare at his mother. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Lucy Tempest! What won't do?" "You are beginning to pay Lucy Tempest particular attention," said Lady Verner, unscrewing the silver stopper of her essence-bottle, and applying some to her forehead. "I will not permit it, Lionel." Lionel could not avoid laughing. "What can have put such a thing in your head, mother, I am at a loss to conceive. Certainly nothing in my conduct has induced it. I have talked to Lucy as a child, more than as anything else; I have scarcely thought of her but as one----" "Lucy is not a child," interrupted Lady Verner. "In years I find she is not. When I first saw her at the railway-station, I thought she was a child, and the impression somehow remains upon my mind. Too often I talk to her as one. As to anything else--were I to marry to-morrow, it is not Lucy Tempest I should make my wife." The first glad look that Lionel had seen on Lady Verner's face for many a day came over it then. In her own mind she had been weaving a pretty little romance for Lionel; and it was her dread, lest that romance should be interfered with, which had called up her fears, touching Lucy Tempest. "My darling Lionel, you know where you might go and choose a wife," she said. "I have long wished that you would do it. Beauty, rank, wealth--you may win them for the asking." A slightly self-conscious smile crossed the lips of Lionel. "You are surely not going to introduce again that nonsense about Mary Elmsley!" he exclaimed. "I should never like her, never marry her, therefore--" "Did you not allude to _her_ when you spoke but now--that it was not Lucy Tempest you should make your wife?" "No." "To whom, then? Lionel, I must know it." Lionel's cheek flushed scarlet. "I am not going to marry yet--I have no intention of it. Why should this conversation have arisen?"