"Oh, Lucy," said she, "do dry your tears, and look bewitching—for who do you think is down stairs—no other than your charming partner of last night, Mr. Beauclerc, who is making himself so agreeable, listening to mamma's touching account of your grief—so that you need not mind his seeing that you have been crying."
"Thank you," said Lucy, without raising her head; "but I cannot come down to-day."
"Oh, nonsense, Lucy—think how disappointed he will be—he may never come again."
"I cannot help it," said Lucy; "excuse me in any way you like—I cannot and will not come—and you will only tease me by asking me."
"Well, I am sure I would never stay up-stairs when a beau of mine was down."
"You do not know what you would do, if you had been as wicked as I have been."
"Come, come," said Maria, "we all are wicked, I dare say; but I would never fret myself to death about it; but I suppose I must go," she said, seeing Lucy resume her crouching attitude; and leaving the room, she went to tell her mother, who, though much disappointed, was forced to make Lucy's grief as becoming and touching as possible, in the eyes of the stranger, though she afterwards expressed herself more candidly, saying—"She had no patience with such fits of the heroics, and trusted her sisters would laugh her out of them."
Hargrave listened with great interest to the account of Lucy's share in the accident by which Amy had first suffered, which he gleaned from Caroline; and when, late in the evening, she appeared in the drawing-room, her eyes swollen with weeping, and her cheeks pale and discolored, he met her with a kind look, which her most sparkling moments, perhaps, would not have excited. He gave her the most comfortable seat by the fire, for which she tried to thank him, but her voice failed her, and seating herself, in silence, she rested her tired and aching head upon her hand.
"You have been staying with Mrs. Lesly, I find," he said, knowing that it would be of little purpose to try to turn her thoughts from the subject that pained her.
"Yes," was the faint reply, followed by a deep sigh.