The ladies separated; they met again at the breakfast-room door.  Laughter rang merrily inside, and among the gayest voices was Mr. Dodd’s.  Lucy gave Mrs. Bazalgette an arch look.  “Your patient seems better; “and they entered the room, where, sure enough, they found Mr. Dodd the life and soul of the assembled party.

“A letter from Mrs. Wilson, aunt.”

“And, pray, who is Mrs. Wilson?”

“My nurse.  She tells me ’it is five years since she has seen me, and she is wearying to see me.’  What a droll expression, ‘wearying.’”

“Ah!” said David Dodd.

“You have heard the word before, Mr. Dodd?”

“No, I can’t say I have; but I know what it must mean.”

“Lying becalmed at the equator, eh!  Dodd?” said Bazalgette, misunderstanding him.

“Mrs. Wilson tells me she has taken a farm a few miles from this.”

“Interesting intelligence,” said Mrs. Bazalgette.

“And she says she is coming over to see me one of these days, aunt,” said Lucy, with a droll expression, half arch, half rueful.  She added timidly, “There is no objection to that, is there?”

“None whatever, if she does not make a practice of it; only mind, these old servants are the greatest pests on earth.”

“I remember now,” said Lucy thoughtfully, “Mrs. Wilson was always very fond of me.  I cannot think why, though.”

“No more can I,” said Mr. Hardie, dryly; “she must be a thoroughly unreasonable woman.”

Mr. Hardie said this with a good deal of grace and humor, and a laugh went round the table.

“I mean she only saw me at intervals of several years.”

“Why, Lucy, what an antiquity you are making yourself,” said Fountain.

But Lucy was occupied with her puzzle.  “She calls me her nursling,” said Lucy, sotto voce, to her aunt, but, of course, quite audibly to the rest of the company; “her dear nursling;” and says, “she would walk fifty miles to see me.  Nursling? hum! there is another word I never heard, and I do not exactly know—­ Then she says—­”

"Taisez-vous, petite sotte!" said Mrs. Bazalgette, in a sharp whisper, so admirably projected that it was intelligible only to the ear it was meant for.

Lucy caught it and stopped short, and sat looking by main force calm and dignified, but scarlet, and in secret agony.  “I have said something amiss,” thought Lucy, and was truly wretched.

“We don’t believe in Mrs. Wilson’s affection on this side the table,” said Mr. Hardie; “but her revelations interest us, for they prove that Miss Fountain had a beginning.  Now we had thought she rose from the foam like Venus, or sprung from Jove’s brow like Minerva, or descended from some ancient pedestal, flawless as the Parian itself.”

“What, sir,” cried Bazalgette, furiously, “did you think our niece was built in a day?  So fair a structure, so accomplished a—­”

“Will you be quiet, good people?” said Mrs. Bazalgette.  “She was born, she was bred, she was brought up, in which I had a share, and she is a very good girl, if you gentlemen will be so good as not to spoil her for me with your flattery.”