"Every difference," said Lady Verner. "Were you an old man, you might not be thinking of getting married; as it is, you will be. Your wife will reign at Verner's Pride, Lionel."
Lionel made no answer.
"You will be marrying sometime, I suppose?" reiterated Lady Verner, with emphasis.
"I suppose I shall be," replied Lionel; and his eyes, as he spoke, involuntarily strayed to Lucy. She caught the look, and blushed vividly.
"How much of that do you intend to drink, Miss Lucy?" asked Lionel, as she sipped the tumbler of lemonade, at her elbow.
"Ever so many tumblers of it," she answered. "Jan said I was to keep sipping it all day long. The water, going down slowly, heals the chest."
"I believe if Jan told you to drink boiling water, you'd do it, Lucy," cried Lady Verner. "You seem to fall in with all he says."
"Because I like him, Lady Verner. Because I have faith in him; and if Jan prescribes a thing, I know that he has faith in it."
"It is not displaying a refined taste to like Jan," observed Lady Verner, intending the words as a covert reprimand to Lucy.
But Lucy stood up for Jan. Even at the dread of openly disagreeing with Lady Verner, Lucy would not be unjust to one whom she deemed of sterling worth.