"No, indeed. I am nothing better than a baby."
"You are a million times better than any other woman, and will make the best and dearest of wives—if you had only a luckier fellow for a husband."
"Are you unlucky, really? Are you very poor?"
"Poor enough for a hermit. My father is not much richer; and as I have the good fortune to be a younger son, the little he has will go to George, my elder brother, not to me."
Lucia was silent a moment, thinking.
"Are you frightened?" he asked her. "You did not know things were quite so bad?"
"I am not frightened," she answered. "But I was considering. Mamma has some money; she would give me what she could, but I am not like Bella, you know. I have not any fortune at all."
Mr. Percy laughed, "Do not puzzle yourself over such difficulties to-night, at any rate. Leave me to think of those. I will tell you what you must do. Make up your mind to be as charming as possible when you see my father, and fascinate him in spite of himself; for, I assure you he will not very readily forgive us for deranging his plans. Good-night now, I shall be here early to-morrow."
He went away up the lane, while she lingered yet for a moment, looking after him, trying to understand clearly what had happened—to realize this wonderful happiness which was yet only like a dream. How could she go out of the soft summer darkness into the bright light of the parlour and its every day associations? But as she retraced every word and look of the past hour, she came back at last to the horrible recollection of the Indian who had alarmed her. That hideous besotted face seemed to stare at her again through the obscurity, and, trembling with fright, she hurried through the garden and up the verandah steps.
Mrs. Costello was sitting at work by the table where the light fell brightly, but Lucia was glad that the lamp-shade threw most of the room into comparative darkness. Even as it was, she came with shy lingering steps to her mother's side, and was in no hurry to answer her question, "Where have you been loitering so long?"