"I fancy you are getting rather fond of being with Lucy, and--and--in short, it won't do." Lionel, in his excessive astonishment, could only stare at his mother.
"What do you mean ?" he asked.

"Lucy Tempest! What won't do ?" "You are beginning to pay Lucy Tempest particular attention," said Lady Verner, unscrewing the silver stopper of her essence-bottle, and applying some to her forehead.

"I will not permit it, Lionel." Lionel could not avoid laughing.
"What can have put such a thing in your head, mother, I am at a loss to conceive.

Certainly nothing in my conduct has induced it.

I have talked to Lucy as a child, more than as anything else; I have scarcely thought of her but as one----" "Lucy is not a child," interrupted Lady Verner.
"In years I find she is not.