“Well, then, for one thing, she is to drink tea with us this evening.”

“She?  Who?  What?  Where?  Oh!”

“Here.”

CHAPTER V.

MR. FOUNTAIN sat at breakfast opposite his niece with a twinkle set in his eye like a cherry-clack in a tree, relishing beforehand her smiles, and blushes, and gratitude to him for having hooked and played his friend, so that now she had but to land him.  “I’ll just finish this delicious cup of coffee,” thought he, “and then I’ll tell you, my lady.”  While he was slowly sipping said cup, Lucy looked up and said graciously to him, “How silly Mr. Talboys was last night—­was he not, dear?”

“Talboys? silly? what? do you know?  Why, what on earth do you mean?”

“Silly is a harsh word—­injudicious, then—­praising me a tort et a travers, and was downright ill-bred—­was discourteous to another of our guests, Mr. Dodd.”

“Confound Mr. Dodd!  I wish I had never invited him.”

“So do I. If you remember, I dissuaded you.”

“I do remember now.  What! you don’t like him, either?”

“There you are mistaken, dear.  I esteem Mr. Dodd highly, and Miss Dodd, too, in spite of her manifest defects; but in making up parties, however small, we should choose our guests with reference to each other, not merely to ourselves.  Now, forgive me, it was clear beforehand that Mr. Talboys and the Dodds, especially Miss Dodd, would never coalesce; hence my objection in inviting them; but you overruled me—­with a rod of iron, dear.”

“Yes; but why?  Because you gave me such a bad reason; you never said a word about this incongruity.”

“But it was in my mind all the time.”

“Then why didn’t it come out?”

“Because—­because something else would come out instead.  As if one gave one’s real reasons for things!!  Now, uncle dear, you allow me great liberties, but would it have been quite the thing for me to lecture you upon the selection of your own convives?"

“Why, you have ended by doing it.”

Lucy colored.  “Not till the event proves—­not till—­”

“Not till your advice is no longer any use.”

Lucy, driven into a corner, replied by an imploring look, which had just the opposite effect of argument.  It instantly disarmed the old boy; he grinned superior, and spared his supple antagonist three sarcasms that were all on the tip of his tongue.  He was rewarded for his clemency by a little piece of advice, delivered by his niece with a sort of hesitating and penitent air he did not understand one bit, eyes down upon the cloth all the time.

It came to this.  He was to listen to her suggestions with a prejudice in their favor if he could, and give them credit for being backed by good reasons; at all events, he was never to do them the injustice to suppose they rested on those puny considerations she might put forward in connection with them.