“What will you give me for some news, Miss Lucy?”

Lucy’s thoughts were running upon certain other news; news known but to herself and to one more.  A strangely happy light shone in her soft, brown eyes, as she turned them on Jan; a rich damask flush on the cheeks where his lips had so lately been.

“Does it concern me, Jan?”

“It doesn’t much concern anybody else.—­Guess.”

“I never can guess anything; you know I can’t, Jan,” she answered, smiling.  “You must please tell me.”

“Well,” said Jan, “there’s an arrival.  Come by the train.”

“Oh, Jan!  Not papa?”

Jan nodded.

“You will find him indoors.  Old Bat’s come with him.”

Lucy never could quite remember the details of the meeting.  She knew that her father held her to him fondly, and then put her from him to look at her; the tears blinding her eyes and his.

“You are pretty, Lucy,” he said, “very pretty.  I asked Jan whether you were not, but he could not tell me.”

“Jan!” slightingly spoke Lady Verner, while Lucy laughed in spite of her tears.  “It is of no use asking Jan anything of that sort, Sir Henry, I don’t believe Jan knows one young lady’s face from another.”

It seemed to be all confusion for some time; all bustle; nothing but questions and answers.  But when they had assembled in the drawing-room again, after making ready for dinner, things wore a calmer aspect.

“You must have thought I never was coming home!” remarked Sir Henry to Lady Verner.  “I have contemplated it so long.”

“I suppose your delays were unavoidable,” she answered.

“Yes—­in a measure.  I should not have come now, but for the relieving you of Lucy.  Your letters, for some time past, have appeared to imply that you were vexed with her, or tired of her; and, in truth, I have taxed your patience and good nature unwarrantably.  I do not know how I shall repay your kindness, Lady Verner.”

“I have been repaid throughout, Sir Henry,” was the quiet reply of Lady Verner.  “The society of Lucy has been a requital in full.  I rarely form an attachment, and when I do form one it is never demonstrative; but I have learned to love Lucy as I love my own daughter, and it will be a real grief to part with her.  Not but that she has given me great vexation.”

“Ah!  In what way?”

“The years have gone on and on since she came to me; and I was in hopes of returning her to you with some prospect in view of the great end of a young lady’s life—­marriage.  I was placed here as her mother; and I felt more responsibility in regard to her establishment in life than I did to Decima’s.  We have been at issue upon the point, Sir Henry; Lucy and I.”

Sir Henry turned his eyes on his daughter:  if that is not speaking figuratively, considering that he had scarcely taken his eyes off her.  A fair picture she was, sitting there in her white evening dress and her pearl ornaments.  Young, lovely, girlish, she looked, as she did the first day she came to Lady Verner’s and took up her modest seat on the hearth-rug.  Sir Henry Tempest had not seen many such faces as that; he had not met with many natures so innocent and charming.  Lucy was made to be admired as well as loved.