"That is enough, Lucia," interrupted Lady Theobald; and Lucia dropped her
eyes, and began to eat her soup with nervous haste. In fact, she was glad
to escape so easily.

She was a very pretty creature, with brown eyes, a soft white skin, and
a slight figure with a reed-like grace. A great quantity of brown hair
was twisted into an ugly coil on the top of her delicate little head;
and she wore an ugly muslin gown of Miss Chickie's make. For some time
the meal progressed in dead silence; but at length Lucia ventured to
raise her eyes.

"I have been walking in Slowbridge, grandmamma," she said, "and I met Mr.
Burmistone, who told me that Miss Bassett has a visitor--a young lady
from America."

Lady Theobald laid her knife and fork down deliberately.

"Mr. Burmistone?" she said. "Did I understand you to say that you stopped
on the roadside to converse with Mr. Burmistone?"

Lucia colored up to her delicate eyebrows and above them.

"I was trying to reach a flower growing on the bank," she said, "and he
was so kind as to stop to get it for me. I did not know he was near at
first. And then he inquired how you were--and told me he had just heard
about the young lady."

"Naturally!" remarked her ladyship sardonically. "It is as I anticipated
it would be. We shall find Mr. Burmistone at our elbows upon all