Nell of Shorne Mills

Lady Luce went and leaned upon almost the very spot where Nell had

leaned; and she looked up at the sky and toward the twinkling lights,

and yawned.

"Sorry you have come, dear?" said Lady Chesney, with a little laugh. "I

know you so well that that yawn speaks volumes."

"It is rather slow, isn't it?" admitted Lady Luce, with the soft little

London drawl in her languid voice.

"My dear Luce, I told you it would be slow. What did you expect? These

dear, good people are quite out of the world--they are antediluvians.

The best people imaginable, of course, but not of the kind which gives

the sort of hop you care for. I'm sorry you came; but I did warn you,

dear, didn't I?"

"Yes, I know," assented Lady Luce.

"And, really, you seemed so bored--forgive me, dear; I don't want to be

offensive--that I thought that perhaps, after all, this rustic

entertainment might amuse you."

"I'm not bored, but I'm very sick and sorry for myself," said Luce. "One

always is when one has been a fool."

"My dear girl, you did it for the best."

"That always seems to me such a futile, and altogether ineffectual,

consolation," said Luce; "and people never offer it to you unless you

have absolutely made a fool of yourself."

"But I think, and everybody thinks with me, that you acted very wisely

under the circumstances. He could not expect you to marry a poor man.

Good heavens! fancy Luce and poverty! The combination is not to be

imagined for a moment! It is not your fault that circumstances are

altered, and that if you had only waited----"

Lady Luce made a little impatient movement with her hand.

"If I had only waited!" she said, with a mixture of irritation and

regret. "It was just my luck that I should meet him when I did."

There was a pause. It need scarcely be said that Nell was extremely

uncomfortable. These two were discussing a matter of the most private

character, and she was playing the unwelcome part of listener. Had she

been a woman of the world, it would have been easy for her to have

emerged from her hiding place, and to have swept past them slowly, as if

she had seen and heard nothing, as if she were quite unconscious of

their presence. But Nell was not a woman of the world; she was just Nell

of Shorne Mills, a girl at her first ball, and her first introduction to

society. She could not move--could only long for them to become either

silent or to go away and leave her free to escape.