Each lady being bent on receiving, not on making revelations, nothing transpired on either side.  Seeing this, Eve became impatient and made a bold move.

“Miss Fountain,” said she, “you are all alone.  I wish you would come over to us this evening and have tea.”

Lucy did not immediately reply.  Eve saw her hesitation.  “It is but a poor place,” said she, “to ask you to.”

“I will come,” said the lady, directly.  “I will come with great pleasure.”

“Will seven be too early for you?”

“Oh, no, I don’t dine now my uncle is away.  I call luncheon dinner.”

“Perhaps, six, then?”

“Pray let me come at your usual hour.  Why derange your family for one person?” Six o’clock was settled.

“I must take some of this rubbish with me,” said Eve; “come along, my dears”; and with an ample and mock enthusiastic gesture she caught up an armful of manuscripts.

“The servant shall take them over for you.”

“Oh, bother the servant; I am my own servant—­if you will lend me a pin or two.”

Lucy drew six pins out from different parts of her dress.  Eve noticed this, but said nothing.  She pinned up her apron so as to make an enormous pocket, and went gayly off with the “spoils of time.”

CHAPTER VII.

“Is that what you call being calm, David?  Let me alone—­don’t slobber me.  I am sure I wish she had said, ‘No.’  If I had thought she would come I would never have asked her. "

“You would, Eve; you would, for love of me.”

“Who knows?  Perhaps I might.  I am more indulgent than kind.”

“Eve, do tell me all.  Is she well? does she come of her own good will?  Dear Eve!”

“Well, I’ll tell you:  first we had a bit of a talk for a blind like; and her uncle is away; so then I asked her plump to come to tea.  Well, David, first she looked ’No’—­only for a single moment, though; she soon altered her mind, and so then, the moment it was to be ‘Yes,’ she cleared up, and you would have thought she had been asked to the king’s banquet.  Ah!  David, my lad, you have fallen into good hands—­you have launched your heart on a deeper ocean than ever your ship sailed on.”

David took no notice.  He was in a state of exaltation for one thing, and, besides, Eve’s simile was sent to the wrong address; we terrestrials fear water in proportion to its depth, but these mariners dread their native element only when it is shallow.

David now kept asking in an excited way what they could do for her.  “What could they get to do her honor?  Wouldn’t she miss the luxuries of her fine place?”

“Now you be quiet, David; we need not put ourselves about, for she will be the easiest girl to please you have ever seen here; or, if she isn’t, she’ll act it so that you’ll be none the wiser.  However, you can go and buy some flowers for me.”