On entering the room she saw herself in the large mirror that adorned the mantel-piece, and felt for the first time as if all this was some dreadful dream.  The reality, however, of the misery she felt was too strongly in her heart to suffer this consoling fiction, painful even though it was, to remain.  The next moment she found Lord Dunroe doing her homage and obeisance,—­an obeisance which she returned with a lady-like but melancholy grace, that might have told to any other observer the sufferings she felt, and the sacrifice she was making.

Dunroe, with as much politeness as he could assume, handed her to the sofa, close to which he drew a chair, and opened the dialogue as follows: 

“I am sorry to hear that you have not been well, Miss Gourlay.  Life, however, is uncertain, and we should always be prepared—­at least, so says Scripture.  All flesh is grass, I think is the expression—­ahem.”

Lucy looked at him with a kind of astonishment; and, indeed, we think our readers will scarcely feel surprised that she did so; the reflection being anything but adapted to the opening of a love scene.

“Your observation, my lord,” she replied, “is very true—­too true, for we rarely make due preparation for death.”

“But I can conceive, readily enough,” replied his lordship, “why the man that wrote the Scripture used the expression.  Death, you know Miss Gourlay, is always represented as a mower, bearing a horrible scythe, and an hour-glass.  Now, a mower, you know, cuts down grass; and there is the origin of the similitude.”

“And a very appropriate one it is, I think,” observed Lucy.

“Well, I dare say it is; but somewhat vulgar though.  I should be disposed to say, now, that the man who wrote that must have been a mower himself originally.”

Lucy made no reply to this sapient observation.  His lordship, however, who seemed to feel that he had started upon a wrong principle, if not a disagreeable one, went on: 

“It is not, however, to talk of death, Miss Gourlay, that we have met, but of a very different and much more agreeable subject—­marriage.”

“To me, my lord,” she replied, “death is the more agreeable of the two.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Miss Gourlay; but I think you are in low spirits, and that accounts for it.  Your father tells me, however, that I have your permission to urge my humble claims.  He says you have kindly and generously consented to look upon me, all unworthy as I feel I am, as your future husband.”

“It is true, my lord, I have consented to this projected union; but I feel that it is due to your lordship to state that I have done so under very painful and most distressing circumstances.  It is better I should speak now, my lord, than at a future day.  My father’s mind has been seized by an unaccountable ambition to see me your wife.  This preyed upon him so severely that he became dangerously ill.”  Here, however, from delicacy to the baronet, she checked herself, but added, “Yes, my lord, I have consented; but, understand me—­you have not my affections.”