Mrs. Mainwaring looked, on with wonder.  Lucy’s beauty seemed to brighten, as it were with a divine light, as she uttered these glowing words.  In fact, she appeared to undergo a transfiguration from the mortal state to the angelic, and exemplified, in her own person—­now radiant with the highest and holiest enthusiasm of love—­all that divine purity, all that noble pride and heroic devotedness of heart, by which it is actuated and inspired.  Her eyes, as she proceeded, filled with tears, and on concluding, she threw herself, weeping, into her friend’s arms, exclaiming,

“Alas! my dear, dear Mrs. Mainwaring, I am not worthy of him.”

Mrs. Mainwaring kissed, and cherished, and soothed her, and in a short time she recovered herself, and resumed an aspect of her usual calm, dignified, yet graceful beauty.

“Alas!” thought her friend, as she looked on her with mingled compassion and admiration, “this love is either for happiness or death.  I now see, after all, that there is much of the father’s character stamped into her spirit, and that the same energy with which he pursues ambition actuates his daughter in love.  Each will have its object, or die.”

“Well, my love,” she exclaimed aloud, “I am sorry we permitted our conversation to take such a turn, or to carry us so far.  You are, I fear, not yet strong enough for anything calculated to affect or agitate you.”

“The introduction of it was necessary, my dear madam,” replied Lucy; “for I need not say that it was my object to mention the subject of our attachment to you before the close of our conversation.”

“Well, at all events,” replied Mrs. Mainwaring, “we shall go and have a walk through the fields.  The sun is bright and warm; the little burn below, and the thousand larks above, will give us their melody; and Cracton’s park—­our own little three-cornered paddock—­will present us with one of the sweetest objects in the humble landscape—­a green field almost white with daisies—­pardon the little blunder, Lucy—­thus constituting it a poem for the heart, written by the hand of nature herself.”

Lucy, who enjoyed natural scenery with the high enthusiasm that was peculiar to her character, was delighted at the proposal, and in a few minutes both the ladies sauntered out through the orchard, which was now white and fragrant with blossoms.

As they went along, Mrs. Mainwaring began to mention some particulars of her marriage; a circumstance to which, owing to Lucy’s illness, she had not until then had an opportunity of adverting.

“The truth is, my dear Lucy,” she proceeded, “I am naturally averse to lead what is termed a solitary life in the world.  I wish to have a friend on whom I can occasionally rest, as upon a support.  You know that I kept a boarding-school in the metropolis for many years after my return from the Continent.  That I was successful and saved some money are facts which, perhaps, you don’t know.  Loss of