"I beg Puck's pardon. But you see, when one is trusted with a whip, one feels such a longing to use it."
"Oh, but you should keep it still. I feel almost certain that Lady Lufton would like such a match."
"I dare say she might. Miss Grantly will have a large fortune, I believe."
"It is not that altogether; but she is the sort of young lady that Lady Lufton likes. She is ladylike and very beautiful—"
"Come, Fanny!"
"I really think she is; not what I should call lovely, you know, but very beautiful. And then she is quiet and reserved; she does not require excitement, and I am sure is conscientious in the performance of her duties."
"Very conscientious, I have no doubt," said Lucy, with something like a sneer in her tone. "But the question, I suppose, is whether Lord Lufton likes her."
"I think he does—in a sort of way. He did not talk to her so much as he did to you—"
"Ah! that was all Lady Lufton's fault, because she didn't have him properly labeled."
"There does not seem to have been much harm done?"
"Oh! by God's mercy, very little. As for me, I shall get over it in three or four years, I don't doubt—that's if I can get ass's milk and change of air."
"We'll take you to Barchester for that. But, as I was saying, I really do think Lord Lufton likes Griselda Grantly."
"Then I really do think that he has uncommon bad taste," said Lucy, with a reality in her voice differing very much from the tone of banter she had hitherto used.
"What, Lucy!" said her sister-in-law, looking at her. "Then I fear we shall really want the ass's milk."
"Perhaps, considering my position, I ought to know nothing of Lord Lufton, for you say that it is very dangerous for young ladies to know young gentlemen. But I do know enough of him to understand that he ought not to like such a girl as Griselda Grantly. He ought to know that she is a mere automaton, cold, lifeless, spiritless, and even vapid. There is, I believe, nothing in her mentally, whatever may be her moral excellences. To me she is more absolutely like a statue than any other human being I ever saw. To sit still and be admired is all that she desires; and if she can not get that, to sit still and not be ad-
