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178 "Oh, going out, were you? I don't know whether I may offer to—"

"Well, Lord Lufton, not exactly, seeing that I am about to pay a visit to our near neighbor, Mrs. Podgens. Perhaps you have no particular call toward Mrs. Podgens' just at present, or to her new baby?"

"And have you any very particular call that way?"

"Yes, and especially to Baby Podgens. Baby Podgens is a real little duck—only just two days old." And Lucy, as she spoke, progressed a step or two, as though she were determined not to remain there talking on the door-step.

A slight cloud came across his brow as he saw this, and made him resolve that she should not gain her purpose. He was not going to be foiled in that way by such a girl as Lucy Robarts. He had come there to speak to her, and speak to her he would. There had been enough of intimacy between them to justify him in demanding, at any rate, as much as that.

"Miss Robarts," he said, "I am starting for London to-morrow, and if I do not say good-by to you now, I shall not be able to do so at all."

"Good-by, Lord Lufton," she said, giving him her hand, and smiling on him with her old genial, good-humored, racy smile. "And mind you bring into Parliament that law which you promised me for defending my young chickens."

He took her hand, but that was not all that he wanted. "Surely Mrs. Podgens and her baby can wait ten minutes. I shall not see you again for months to come, and yet you seem to begrudge me two words."

"Not two hundred, if they can be of any service to you," said she, walking cheerily back into the drawing-room; "only I did not think it worth while to waste your time, as Fanny is not here."

She was infinitely more collected, more master of herself than he was. Inwardly she did tremble at the idea of what was coming, but outwardly she showed no agitation—none as yet; if only she could so possess herself as to refrain from doing so when she heard what he might have to say to her.

He hardly knew what it was for the saying of which he had so resolutely come thither. He had by no means made up his mind that he loved Lucy Robarts, nor had he made