"In his medical skill? Let me tell you, Lucy, he is a very clever man, in spite of what Jan may say."
"I can't tell anything about his skill. Until Jan spoke now I did not know but he was treating you rightly. But I have no faith in himself. I think a good, true, faithful-natured man should be depended on for cure, more certainly than one who is false-natured."
"False-natured!" echoed Lionel. "Lucy, you should not so speak of Dr. West. You know nothing wrong of Dr. West. He is much esteemed among us at Deerham."
"Of course I know nothing wrong of him," returned Lucy, with some slight surprise. "But when I look at people I always seem to know what they are. I am sorry to have said so much. I—I think I forgot it was to you I spoke."
"Forgot!" exclaimed Lionel. "Forgot what?"
She hesitated at the last sentence, and she now blushed vividly.
"I forgot for the moment that he was Sibylla's father," she simply said.
Again the scarlet rose in the face of Lionel. Lucy leaned against the window-frame but a few paces from him, her large soft eyes, in their earnest sympathy, lifted to his. He positively shrank from them.
"What's Sibylla to me?" he asked. "She is Mrs. Frederick Massingbird."
Lucy stood in penitence. "Do not be angry with me," she timidly cried. "I ought not to have said it to you, perhaps. I see it always."