"Ah! but there are girls here who would give their eyes for ten minutes of Lord Lufton to themselves. You do not know how he's valued. He has the character of being always able to make himself agreeable to ladies at half a minute's warning."
"Perhaps he had not the half minute's warning in this case," said Lucy, hypocrite that she was.
"Poor Lucy," said her brother; "he was coming up to see Ponto's shoulder, and I am afraid he was thinking more about the dog than you."
"Very likely," said Lucy; and then they went in to dinner.
Lucy had been a hypocrite, for she had confessed to herself, while dressing, that Lord Lufton had been very pleasant; but then it is allowed to young ladies to be hypocrites when the subject under discussion is the character of a young gentleman.
Soon after that, Lucy did dine at Framley Court. Captain Culpepper, in spite of his enormity with reference to Gatherum Castle, was still staying there, as was also a clergyman from the neighborhood of Barchester, with his wife and daughter. This was Archdeacon Grantly, a gentleman whom we have mentioned before, and who was as well known in the diocese as the bishop himself, and more thought about by many clergymen than even that illustrious prelate.
Miss Grantly was a young lady not much older than Lucy Robarts, and she also was quiet, and not given to much talking in open company. She was decidedly a beauty, but somewhat statuesque in her loveliness. Her forehead was high and white, but perhaps too like marble to gratify the taste of those who are fond of flesh and blood. Her eyes were large and exquisitely formed, but they seldom showed much emotion. She, indeed, was impassive herself, and betrayed but little of her feelings. Her nose was nearly Grecian, not coming absolutely in a straight line from her forehead, but doing so nearly enough to entitle it to be considered as classical. Her mouth, too, was very fine—artists, at least, said so, and connoisseurs in beauty; but to me she always seemed as though she wanted fullness of lip. But the exquisite symmetry of her cheek and chin and lower face no man could deny. Her hair was light, and, being always dressed with considerable care, did not detract from
