“Oh, the same, miss.”

“The same? why, she is not going into mourning on my return? ha! ha!”

“La bless you, miss, mourning? you can’t call that mourning—­glace silk and love-ribbons scalloped out, and cetera.  Of course it was not my business to tell her so; but I could not help thinking to myself, if that is the way my folk are going to mourn for me, they may just let it alone.  However, that is all over now; and your aunt sent for me, and says she, ’Black becomes me; you will make the dresses all the same.’” And Baldwin retired radiant.

Lucy put her hand to her bosom.  “Make the dresses all the same—­all the same, whether I am alive or dead.  No, I will not cry; no, I will not.  Who is worth a tear? what is worth a tear?  All the same.  It is not to be forgotten—­nor forgiven.  Poor Mr. Dodd!!”

Mr. Fountain learned the good news in the town, so his meeting with Lucy was one of pure joy.  Mr. Talboys did not hear anything.  He had business up in London, and did not stay ten minutes in ——.

The house revived, and jubilabat, jubilabat. But after the first burst of triumph things went flat.  David Dodd was gone, and was missed; and Lucy was changed.  She looked a shade older, and more than one shade graver; and, instead of living solely for those who happened to be basking in her rays, she was now and then comparatively inattentive, thoughtful, and distraite.

Mr. Fountain watched her keenly; ditto Mrs. Bazalgette.  A slight reaction had taken place in both their bosoms.  “Hang the girl! there were we breaking our hearts for her, and she was alive.”  She had “beguiled them of their tears.”—­Othello.  But they still loved her quite well enough to take charge of her fate.

A sort of itch for settling other people’s destinies, and so gaining a title to their curses for our pragmatical and fatal interference, is the commonest of all the forms of sanctioned lunacy.

Moreover, these two had imbibed the spirit of rivalry, and each was stimulated by the suspicion that the other was secretly at work.

Lucy’s voluntary promise in the ballroom was a double sheet-anchor to Mr. Fountain.  It secured him against the only rival he dreaded.  Talboys, too, was out of the way just now, and the absence of the suitor is favorable to his success, where the lady has no personal liking for him.  To work went our Machiavel again, heart and soul, and whom do you think he had the cheek, or, as the French say, the forehead, to try and win over?—­Mrs. Bazalgette.

This bold step, however, was not so strange as it would have been a month ago.  The fact is, I have brought you unfairly close to this pair.  When you meet them in the world you will be charmed with both of them, and recognize neither.  There are those whose faults are all on the surface:  these are generally disliked; there are those whose faults are all at the core:  they charm creation.