He was taken from her and delivered over to Lady Archfield to be caressed and pitied because his father would not come home ’to see his grand-dame’s own beauty,’ while Lucy took the guests upstairs to prepare for supper, Naomi and her maid being bestowed in the best guest-chamber, and Lucy taking her friend to her own, the scene of many a confabulation of old.

“Oh, how I love it!” cried Anne, as the door opened on the well-known little wainscotted abode.  “The very same beau-pot.  One would think they were the same clove gillyflowers as when I went away.”

“O Anne, dear, and you are just the same after all your kings and queens, and all you have gone through;” and the two friends were locked in another embrace.

“Kings and queens indeed!  None of them all are worth my Lucy.”

“And now, tell me all; tell me all, Nancy, and first of all about my brother.  How does he look, and is he well?”

“He looks!  O Lucy, he is grown such a noble cavalier; most like the picture of that uncle of yours who was killed, and that Sir Philip always grieves for.”

“My father always hoped Charley would be like him,” said Lucy.  “You must tell him that.  But I fear he may be grave and sad.”

“Graver, but not sad now.”

“And you have seen him and talked to him, Anne?  Did you know he was going on this terrible enterprise?”

“He spoke of it, but never told me when.”

“Ah!  I was sure you knew more about it than the old tutor man.  You always were his little sweetheart before poor little Madam came in the way, and he would tell you anything near his heart.  Could you not have stopped him?”

“I think not, Lucy; he gave his reasons like a man of weight and thought, and you see his Honour thinks them sound ones.”

“Oh yes; but somehow I cannot fancy our Charley doing anything for grand, sound, musty reasons, such as look well marshalled out in a letter.”

“You don’t know how much older he is grown,” said Anne, again, with the tell-tale colour in her cheeks.  “Besides, he cannot bear to come home.”

“Don’t tell me that, Nan.  My mother does not see it; but though he was fond of poor little Madam in a way, and tried to think himself more so, as in duty bound, she really was fretting and wearing the very life—­no, perhaps not the life, but the temper—­out of him.  What I believe it to be the cause is, that my father must have been writing to him about that young gentlewoman in the island that he is so set upon, because she would bring a landed estate which would give Charles something to do.  They say that Peregrine Oakshott ran away to escape wedding his cousin; Charley will banish himself for the like cause.”

“He said nothing of it,” said Anne.

“O Anne, I wish you had a landed estate!  You would make him happier than any other, and would love his poor little Phil!  Anne! is it so?  I have guessed!” and Lucy kissed her on each cheek.