"In love with Jan!" Lucy paused for a moment after the words, and then burst into a merry fit of laughter. "Oh, Lady Verner! I cannot fancy anybody falling in love with Jan. I don't think he would know what to do."
"I don't think he would," quietly replied Lady Verner.
A peal at the courtyard bell, and the letting down the steps of a carriage. Visitors for Lady Verner. They were shown to the drawing-room, and the servant came in.
"The Countess of Elmsley and Lady Mary, my lady."
Lady Verner rose with alacrity. They were favourite friends of hers—nearly the only close friends she had made in her retirement.
"Lucy, you must not venture into the drawing-room," she stayed to say. "The room is colder than this. Come."
The last "come" was addressed conjointly to her son and daughter. Decima responded to it, and followed; Lionel remained where he was.
"The cold room would not hurt me, but I am glad not to go," began Lucy, subsiding into a more easy tone, a more social manner, than she ventured on in the presence of Lady Verner. "I think morning visiting the greatest waste of time! I wonder who invented it?"
"Somebody who wanted to kill time," answered Lionel.
"It is not as though friends, who really cared for each other, met and talked. The calls are made just for form's sake, and for nothing else, I will never fall into it when I am my own mistress."