With her own book and a fireside she never felt herself to be miserable as she was now.

She had turned her back to the music for she was sick of seeing Lord Lufton watch the artistic motion of Miss Grantly's fingers, and was sitting at a small table as far away from the piano as a long room would permit, when she was suddenly roused from a reverie of self-reproach by a voice close behind her: "Miss Robarts," said the voice, "why have you cut us all ?" and Lucy felt that, though she heard the words plainly, nobody else did.

Lord Lufton was now speaking to her as he had before spoken to Miss Grantly.
"I don't play, my lord," said Lucy, "nor yet sing." "That would have made your company so much more valuable to us, for we are terribly badly off for listeners.

Perhaps you don't like music ?" "I do like it,--sometimes very much." "And when are the sometimes?
But we shall find it all out in time.

We shall have unravelled all your mysteries, and read all your riddles by--when shall I say ?--by the end of the winter.