struck her as more sincere than the rest. Besides, he was very good
looking.

Lavinia couldn't help having admirers. Nature should not have endowed
her with such alluring, innocent looking eyes, with so sweet a mouth.
She had always had some infatuated young man hovering about her even
when she was her mother's drudge at the coffee house in Bedfordbury.
Perhaps she inherited flirting from that buxom, good-looking mother who
had the reputation of knowing her way quite well where a man was
concerned.

"Archibald Dorrimore will be _Sir_ Archibald some day," she mused. "It
would be rare to be called her ladyship. I can hear the footman saying:
'Your coach is waiting, my lady.' Lady Dorrimore--how well it sounds!
Archibald loves me...."

May be this conviction settled the matter. The girl slid out of bed and
dressed herself hurriedly, though eleven o'clock had only just struck
and she had plenty of time. Perhaps she thought that if she hesitated
any longer she might alter her mind and not be married after all.

Despite her haste she was not neglectful of herself. Now and again she
glanced at the little mirror over which the girls squabbled daily,
smoothed her rebellious hair and settled the Nithsdale hood of her cloak
coquettishly. Then she noiselessly crept from the room, flitted down the
staircase and was at the hall door shooting back its heavy
bolts--fortunately always kept well greased--and lifting the massive
chain which stretched across the centre. Street doors were well guarded
and ground floor windows barred in those days, and not without reason.