that it?"

Rapidly Lucretia considered if it would be wise to leave that impression
on his mind. On one hand, it might account for a moment's agitation; and
if Mainwaring were detected hovering near the domain, in the exchange of
their correspondence, it might appear but the idle, if hopeless, romance
of youth, which haunts the mere home of its object,--but no; on the other
hand, it left his banishment absolute and confirmed. Her resolution was
taken with a promptitude that made her pause not perceptible.

"No, my dear uncle," she said, so cheerfully that it removed all doubt
from the mind of her listener; "but M. Dalibard has rallied me on the
subject, and I was so angry with him that when you touched on it, I
thought more of my quarrel with him than of poor timid Mr. Mainwaring
himself. Come, now, own it, dear sir! M. Dalibard has instilled this
strange fancy into your head?"

"No, 'S life; if he had taken such a liberty, I should have lost my
librarian. No, I assure you, it was rather Vernon; you know true love is
jealous."

"Vernon!" thought Lucretia; "he must go, and at once." Sliding from her
uncle's arms to the stool at his feet, she then led the conversation more
familiarly back into the channel it had lost; and when at last she
escaped, it was with the understanding that, without promise or
compromise, Mr. Vernon should return to London at once, and be put upon
the ordeal through which she felt assured it was little likely he should
pass with success.