THE DEAR GIRL.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "BELLA DONNA," "NEVER
           FORGOTTEN," &c.

    CHAPTER XIV. WARNINGS.

LUCY slept very sweetly, had charming
dreams, and rose very happy. The opinion was
universally entertained of her next morning, that
she was a knowing young thing, and had not
been trained in an Anglo-French school for
nothing. Her tactics were perfectly known.
Was it not a painful thing to see a girl of that age
brought up so by that rap of an Irish father,
who was teaching her to keep two lovers, both old
enough to be her father, in play at the same time?
The dark looks of the dragon of a sister had
not been unnoticed, and the stupid child had
better have chosen another time to play off
her tricks. But what was this to the feeling
when it got known that she had gone to
meet this officer at Sody's, and had brought him
off, and fixed him happily at lodgings exactly
opposite their own house! This effrontery and
cold strategy seemed shocking in a child of
her years; and female moralists, over their
morning café au lait, might be excused auguring
the worst. Indeed, it must be said her
behaviour had an air of fitfulness and coquetry;
but then we know perfect innocence and real
simplicity will do things of the most awkward
kind. The truth was, she had taken her
explanation with Mr. West literally. Their
explanation had made everything clear to her.
In time—years to a young girl—she was to
learn how to admire and love him. And he
enjoyed such an exemption from the follies and
passions of the young, was so moderate, and
had such an interest for what was her interest,
that—in short, the understanding between
them was complete and clear. In the interval
she did not understand that she was to lock up
her sympathies in the good and amiable.

It was a wild lead-coloured day. It had been
a stormy night, and the wind had not gone
down. The sea-wind was very unwelcome at
the colony, and at every corner lay in wait,
cold, searching, and betraying the nearness of
the monster from whose bosom it came. The
colonists kept close on these visitations. From
being a bright, sparkling place glittering like a
pinchbeck article de Paris in Blum's window,
the little town changed like a chameleon,
becoming dull and slate-colour, shrinking, shivering,
wrapping itself close in its sad-coloured
paletot. Lucy was looking out from her window
a little disconsolately (for this dusty day
had a corresponding effect on her father's temper,
bringing the whole train of gloomy
forebodings, depression, ill humour, and the very
worst visions of ruin and despair), when a visitor
was announced.

Miss West stood before her. That lady's
appearance made Lucy wonder, she always regarding
her with a curious feeling of awe and
repulsion. The day, too, was not one of her days.
To her surprise, she came up to her with
affectionate haste, and an air of interest that seemed
like a sunbeam playing on a bit of ice. She sat
down beside Lucy, asked about her father; had
she been down to the port? with the usual
conventional questions, but said nothing of the last
night.

"Gilbert has not been here? Well, I
suppose he will be, later. He has a deep interest
in you—deeper, perhaps, than you can
suspect, or perhaps understand."

Lucy answered gravely: "I value and esteem
his goodness and kindness to me. And I don't
know how—I may be too young to have the
power of conveying this as strongly as I ought."'

"It is not that," said Miss West, quickly;
"speeches are not what we want, though it is
not so much your fault. Girls just entering on
the world are taught to suppose one man as
charming as another, and as so many partners
in a night's dance, the last is always the
finest and best."

Lucy's eyes widened. "I don't understand
why you say this to me, Miss West."

"Why? You have wit enough to know.
This is no little matter for acting. You should
be told that Gilbert's is not one of those cheap
natures to be treated in that way. His is no
trifler's heart, but the noblest and most
precious. He is everything to me. We are only
two in this world. I don't know how to measure
my words either; but I cannot look on and see
his happiness and our happiness wrecked."

She spoke in such growing agitation, that
Lucy found herself looking at her with wonder
and awe. She was a child in experience and
training, as she had been told, though she had
not a child's heart.

"Why should you think me so wicked?" she