The other gentlemen left the room, and in a shrot time Lady Ashton, followed by her daughter, entered the apartment.  She appeared, as he had seen her on former occasions, rather composed than agitated; but a nicer judge than he could scarce have determined whether her calmness was that of despair or of indifference.  Bucklaw was too much agitated by his own feelings minutely to scrutinise those of the lady.  He stammered out an unconnected address, confounding together the two or three topics to which it related, and stopt short before he brought it to any regular conclusion.  Miss Ashton listened, or looked as if she listened, but returned not a single word in answer, continuing to fix her eyes on a small piece of embroidery on which, as if by instinct or habit, her fingers were busily employed.  Lady Ashton sat at some distance, almost screened from notice by the deep embrasure of the window in which she had placed her chair.  From this she whispered, in a tone of voice which, though soft and sweet, had something in it of admonition, if not command:  “Lucy, my dear, remember—­have you heard what Bucklaw has been saying?”

The idea of her mother’s presence seemed to have slipped from the unhappy girl’s recollection.  She started, dropped her needle, and repeated hastily, and almost in the same breath, the contradictory answers:  “Yes, madam—­no, my lady—­I beg pardon, I did not hear.”

“You need not blush, my love, and still less need you look so pale and frightened,” said Lady Ashton, coming forward; “we know that maiden’s ears must be slow in receiving a gentleman’s language; but you must remember Mr. Hayston speaks on a subject on which you have long since agreed to give him a favourable hearing.  You know how much your father and I have our hearts set upon an event so extremely desirable.”

In Lady Ashton’s voice, a tone of impressive, and even stern, innuendo was sedulously and skilfully concealed under an appearance of the most affectionate maternal tenderness.  The manner was for Bucklaw, who was easily enough imposed upon; the matter of the exhortation was for the terrified Lucy, who well knew how to interpret her mother’s hints, however skilfully their real purport might be veiled from general observation.

Miss Ashton sat upright in her chair, cast round her a glance in which fear was mingled with a still wilder expression, but remained perfectly silent.  Bucklaw, who had in the mean time paced the room to and fro, until he had recovered his composure, now stopped within two or three yards of her chair, and broke out as follows:  “I believe I have been a d—­d fool, Miss Ashton; I have tried to speak to you as people tell me young ladies like to be talked to, and I don’t think you comprehend what I have been saying; and no wonder, for d—­n me if I understand it myself!  But, however, once for all, and in broad Scotch, your father and mother like what is proposed, and if you can take a plain young