he had not regarded his third cousin with a very great deal of interest.
He had seen too many beauties in his thirty years to be greatly moved by
the sight of one; and here was only a girl who had soft eyes, and looked
young for her age, and who wore an ugly muslin gown, that most girls
could not have carried off at all.

"You have spent the greater part of your life in Slowbridge?" he
condescended to say in the course of the evening.

"I have lived here always," Lucia answered. "I have never been away more
than a week at a time."

"Ah?" interrogatively. "I hope you have not found it dull."

"No," smiling a little. "Not very. You see, I have known nothing gayer."

"There is society enough of a harmless kind here," spoke up Lady Theobald
virtuously. "I do not approve of a round of gayeties for young people: it
unfits them for the duties of life."

But Capt. Barold was not as favorably impressed by these remarks as might
have been anticipated.

"What an old fool she is!" was his polite inward comment. And he resolved
at once to make his visit as brief as possible, and not to be induced to
run down again during his stay at Broadoaks. He did not even take the
trouble to appear to enjoy his evening. From his earliest infancy, he had
always found it easier to please himself than to please other people. In
fact, the world had devoted itself to endeavoring to please him, and win
his--toleration, we may say, instead of admiration, since it could not