CHAPTER XXVII.

LUCY’S FIRST VENTURE.

Lucy’s aspect was so entirely that of a submissive and dutiful girl; she was so modestly commonplace, so unlike a heroine, that it was a long time before he could believe that this little creature really meant to make a stand upon her rights. He could scarcely believe, even, that she understood what those rights were, or could stand for a moment against his denial of them. When he was driven to remonstrance, a chill of discouragement succeeded the first fury of his refusal. He tried every oratorical art by sheer stress of nature, denouncing, entreating, imploring all in a breath.

“It is like something out of the Dark Ages,” he cried. “It is mere demoralization. You will make a race of paupers, you will ruin the character of every person who comes near you. For God’s sake! Miss Lucy, think what you want to do. It is not to give away money, it is to spread ruin far and wide—ruin of all the moral sentiments; you will make people dishonest, you will take away their independence, you will be worse than a civil war! And look here,” cried the executor, desperate, “perhaps you think you will get gratitude for it, that people will think you a great benefactor? Not a bit of them! You will sow the wind and reap the whirlwind,” he cried, wrath and despair driving him to that great storehouse of poetry with which early training still supplies the most commonplace of Englishmen.

Lucy listened with great attention, and it was an effort for her to restrain her own awe and respect for “a gentleman,” and the almost terror with which his excitement, as he paced about her little dainty room, shaking the whole house with his hasty steps, filled her. To see her mild countenance, her slight little form, under the hail-storm of his passion, was half pathetic and half ludicrous. Sometimes she cried, sometimes trembled, but never gave in. Other stormy interviews followed, and letters from Mr. Rushton, in which every argument was addressed both to her “good sense” and “good feeling;” but Lucy had neither the good sense to appreciate their conscientious care of her money nor the good feeling to allow that her father had in this particular acted like a fool or a madman. She was wise enough to attempt no argument, but she never gave in; there were moments, indeed, when the two men were in hopes that they had triumphed; but these were only when Lucy herself was wavering and discouraged in regard to the Russells, and unable to decide what to do. The evening after her final interview with Mrs. Russell she sent for Mr. Chervil again; and it was not without a little panic and beating of her heart that Lucy looked forward to this conclusive meeting. She had to prop herself up by all kind of supports, recalling to herself the misery she had seen, and the efforts to conceal that misery, which were almost more painful still to behold, and, on the other hand, the precision of her father’s orders, which entirely suited the case: “If it is a woman, let it be an income upon which she can live and bring up her children;” nothing could be more decided than this. Nevertheless, Lucy felt her heart jump to her mouth when she heard Mr. Chervil’s heavy yet impetuous feet come hastily upstairs.

And Mr. Chervil, as was natural, made a desperate stand, feeling it to be the last. He made Lucy cry, and gave her a great deal of very unpleasant advice; he went further, he bullied her, and made her blush, asking, coarsely, whether it was for the son’s sake that she was so determined to pension the mother? for she had been obliged to give him full particulars of the Russell family and their distresses. It was a terrible morning for the poor little girl. But if the executor ever hoped to make Lucy swerve, or to bully her into giving up her intention, no mistake could be greater. She blushed, and she cried with shame and pain. All the trouble of a child in being violently scolded, the hurts and wounds, the mortification, the sense of injustice, she felt, but she did not yield an inch. Lucy knew the power she had, and no force on earth would have turned her from it. He might hurt her, that was not hard to do, but change her mind he could not; her gentle obstinacy was invincible; she cried, but she stood fast; and naturally the victory fell to her, after that battle. From the beginning Mr. Chervil knew well enough that if she stood out there was nothing to be done, but it seemed to him that fifty must be more than a match for seventeen; and in this he was mistaken, which is not unusual. When, however, all was over, the capitulation signed and sealed, and Lucy, though tearful, intrenched with all her banners flying upon the field of battle, a new sensation awaited the discomfited and angry guardian of her possessions. He thought he had already put up with as much as flesh and blood could bear, but it may be imagined what Mr. Chervil’s feelings were when his ward thus addressed him, putting back a little lock of hair which had got out of its usual tidiness during the struggle (for though there was no actual fighting—far be it from us to insinuate that the angry guardian went the length of blows, though he would have clearly liked to whip her, had he dared—agitation itself puts a girl’s light locks out of order), and pursuing a last tear into the corner of her eyes:

“I want a hundred pounds, if you please, directly; I borrowed it yesterday,” said Lucy, with great composure, “from Sir Thomas, and I said I would pay it back to-day.”

“You—borrowed a hundred pounds—from Sir Thomas!” His voice gurgled in his throat. It was a wonder that he did not have a fit; the blood rushed to his head, his very breath seemed arrested. It was almost as much as his life—being a man of full habit and sanguine temperament—was worth.

“Yes,” said Lucy’s calm, little soft voice. There was still occasionally the echo of a sob in it, as in a child’s voice after a fit of crying, but yet it was quite calm. “Will you write a check for him, if you please?”

“You will drive me mad, Miss Lucy, before you have done!” cried the excited executor, “all for this woman, this young fellow’s mother, this object of your— And you go and borrow from another man, borrow, actually—money—from another man, you, an unmarried girl! Oh, this is too much! I must put your affairs in Chancery! I must wash my hands of you! borrow money—from a man!”

“But I don’t know who else I—could have borrowed it from. Sir Thomas is not just a man; he is a friend. I like him very much, there is nobody so kind. If I had asked Lady Randolph she would have insisted upon knowing everything; but Sir Thomas understands me—a little,” Lucy said.

“Understands you—a little? Well, it is more than I do,” cried her guardian; but when he came to think of it, this complication silenced him, for if the young fellow at Hampstead had been the object of any childish infatuation Sir Thomas could not have been brought into it in this way; and if she had a fancy for Sir Thomas, it was clear the young fellow at Hampstead must be out of it. She could not possibly, at her age, be playing off the one against the other. So Mr. Chervil concluded, having just as little confidence in the purity and simplicity of Lucy’s motives, as everybody else had; and he gave the check with groans of suppressed fury, yet bewilderment. “You don’t know the world, Miss Lucy,” he said, “though you are very clever. I advise you not to borrow from gentlemen; they are apt to fancy, when a girl does that sort of thing— And I will not have it!” he added, with some violence. “You are my ward and under age, notwithstanding that mad codicil. If it were not that a great part of the money would go to your little brother in case we broke the will, by George, I should try it!” the outraged executor said.

“Would it—to Jock? Oh, that would be a blessing!” cried Lucy, clasping her hands; then she added, the light fading from her face, “But that would be to go against everything papa said, for Jock is no relation to my Uncle Rainy. Of course,” said Lucy, with delightful inconsistency, “when I can do what I like, in seven years’ time, Jock shall have his full share, and if I were to die he would be my heir; you said so, Mr. Chervil, that made my mind quite easy. But I shall not be able to borrow from Sir Thomas again,” she added, with a laugh, “because he will not be here.”

What could the guardian do more? There was no telling what might happen in seven years; before seven years were over, please God, she would be married, and trust her husband to guard against the dividing of the fortune! It would be better, Mr. Chervil concluded, to put up with the loss of a few thousand pounds than to risk the cutting up of the whole property, and the alienation of a great part of it from poor Rainy’s race. Besides, the executor knew that to break the will would not be an easy matter. The codicil might be eccentric, but old Trevor was sane enough. He growled, but he wrote the check, and submitted to everything, though with an ill grace. Lady Randolph offered luncheon to the gentleman from the city, and was pointedly ceremonious, though civil.

“Miss Trevor is rather too young to have such lengthened conferences with gentlemen,” she said, “though I have no doubt, Mr. Chervil, I can trust you.”

“Trust me, my lady! Why, I am a man with a family!” cried the astonished executor. “I have daughters as old as Miss Lucy.” He was confused when Sir Tom’s large laugh (for Sir Tom was here again, much amused with the little drama, and almost making his aunt angry by the devotion with which he carried out her scheme) showed him the folly of this little speech, and added awkwardly, “I don’t suppose she will come to any harm in your hand, but she’s a wild madcap, though she looks so quiet, and as obstinate—”

“Are you all that?” Sir Thomas said, looking at Lucy with the laugh still in his eyes. “You hide it under a wonderfully innocent exterior. It is the lion in lamb’s clothing this time. I think you must require my help, aunt, to manage this dangerous young lady.”

“Oh, I can dispense with your help,” Lady Randolph said, with a little flush of irritation. Decidedly things were going too fast and too far; under the very nose of the executor, too, who, no doubt, kept a most keen outlook upon all who surrounded his precious ward. “I am not afraid of Lucy, so long as she is let alone and left to the occupations suitable to her age.” And with this her ladyship rose from the table, and with some impatience bade her young companion get ready for their drive; though, as everybody could see, even through the closed blinds which kept the dim dining-room cool, it was hours too early for any drive.

“Just, a word to you, Sir Thomas, if you’ll permit me,” Mr. Chervil said. “That dangerous young lady, as you call her, will run through every penny she has, if she is allowed to have her own way. If you would be so kind as to not encourage her it would be real friendship, though she mightn’t think so. But as long as any one backs her up—”

Sir Thomas opened his eyes wide. “Ah, I see! you took what I said au pied de la lettre,” he said, with languid contempt. Now the executor was little experienced in the French or any foreign tongue, and he did not know what the foot of the letter meant. He cried, “Oh, no, not at all!” apologetically, shocked by his own boldness; and went away bewildered all round, and much troubled in his mind about the stability of the Rainy estate. Mr. Chervil was the most honorable of trustees—his own interest had nothing at all to do with his opposition. But prodigality in business matters was, to him, the master sin, above all those of the Decalogue. There was, indeed, no commandment there which ordained, “Thou shalt not waste thy money, or give it injudiciously away.” But Mr. Chervil felt that this was a mere oversight on the part of the great lawgiver, and one which prudent persons had a right to amend on their own account. Mr. Chervil, who here felt an unexpressed confidence that he was better informed (on matters of business) than the Almighty, was very sure that he knew a great deal better than old Trevor. He scouted the old man’s ideas as preposterous. That craze of his about giving it back was evident madness. Give it back! the thing to be done was exactly the contrary. He himself knew the way of doubling every pound, and building up the great Rainy fortune into proportions colossal and magnificent. But he did not think of any advantage to himself in all this. He was quite content that it should be the little sedate figure of the girl which should be raised, ever higher and higher into the blazing heaven of wealth upon that golden pedestal, heaped with new and ever-renewed ingots. And not only was this, his ambition, perfectly honest, but there was even in a way something visionary in it, an ideal, something that stood in the place of poetry and art to Mr. Chervil. It was his way of identifying the highest good, the most perfect beauty.

A fortune does not appeal to the eye like a statue or picture; but sometimes it appeals to the mind in a still more superlative way. Old Trevor’s executor felt himself capable of working at it with an enthusiasm which Phidias, which Michael Angelo could not have surpassed. “Anch’ io pittore.” I too have made something all beautiful, all excellent, all but divine, he would have said, had he known how. And when he contemplated the possibility of having his materials taken from him piecemeal, and scattered over the country to produce quite inappreciable results in private holes and corners, his pain and rage and disappointment were almost as great as the sentiments which would have moved the fierce Buonarotti had some wretched bungler got into his studio, and cut knobs off the very bit of marble in which already he saw his David. Therefore it was not altogether a sordid sentiment which moved him. There was in it something of the desperation of a sincere fanatic, as well as the regret of a man of business over opportunities foolishly thrown away.

And Lucy, if the truth must be told, got no particular satisfaction out of the proceeding. She thought it right to suggest, though very timidly, that instead of the bigger house which poor Mrs. Russell’s desperation had been contemplating, a smaller house, where she could herself be comfortable, would be the best; and the suggestion was not graciously received. The family indeed which she had so greatly befriended contemplates her with a confusion and embarrassment which made poor Lucy wretched. Mary, the one of them whom she had always liked best, avoided the sight of the benefactor who had saved them all from destruction. When she appeared reluctantly, her cheeks red with shame, and her eyes with crying, she could scarcely look Lucy in the face. “Oh, Miss Trevor! I wish you had not done it. We should have struggled through and been honest,” Mary exclaimed, averting her eyes; and then she fell a-crying and begged Lucy’s pardon with half-angry vehemence, declaring she hated herself for her ingratitude. Wondering, bewildered, and sad, Lucy stole away as if she had been a guilty creature from the house to which she had given a little fortune, ease, and security, and comfort. Had she made enemies of them instead of friends? Instead of making them happy she seemed to have destroyed all family accord, and put everything wrong. Nor was this all the trouble the poor girl had. She had scarcely got back from that mission of uncomfortable beneficence, when she saw, by the general aspect of affairs in Lady Randolph’s drawing-room that something was wrong. Lady Randolph herself sat bending, with quite unaccustomed energy, over a piece of work, which Lucy had got to know was her refuge when she was annoyed or disturbed—with a flush under her eyes, which was also a sure sign of atmospheric derangement. Sir Thomas was pacing about the room behind backs, and as Lucy came in she saw him (which even in a moment of violent commotion disturbed her orderly soul) tear a newspaper in several pieces, and throw it into the basket under the writing-table—a new newspaper, for it was Saturday. What could he mean? Near Lady Randolph was seated old Lady Betsinda full in the light, and looking more like a merchant of old clothes than ever; while Mrs. Berry-Montagu had her usual place in the shadow of the curtains; the two visitors had the conversation in their hands.

“My dear Mary Randolph,” Lady Betsinda was saying, “you ought to have taken my advice. Never have anything to do with authors; I say it to everybody, and to you I am sure if I have said it once I have said it a hundred times. They are a beggarly race; they don’t print by subscriptions nowadays, but they do far worse. If they can not get as much out of you as they want they will make you suffer for it. Have not I told you? When you’re good to them, they think they pay you a compliment by accepting it. A great many people think it gives them importance to have such persons about their house; they think that is the way to get a salon like the French, but there never was a greater mistake. Authors, so far as I’ve seen, are the very dullest people going; if they ever have an idea in their heads they save it up carefully for their books.”

“What would you have them to do with it, Lady Betty? Waste it upon you and me? Most likely we should not understand it,” said the other lady, with her soft little sneer. “Come in, come in, Miss Trevor, and sit and learn at Lady Betty’s feet.”

Lady Randolph bent toward the speaker with a rapid whisper.

“Not a word to Lucy about it, for heaven’s sake!” she said.

Mrs. Berry-Montagu made no reply; almost all that could be seen of her was the malicious gleam in her eyes.

“Come and learn wisdom,” she said, “at the feet of Lady Betsinda. When we have a university like the men, there shall be a chair of social experience, and she shall be voted into it by acclamation,” Lady Betsinda was a little deaf, and rarely caught all that was said, but she made no show of this imperfection, and went on without asking any questions.

“I have met a great many authors in my day,” she said; “they used to be more in society in my time. Now it has become a sort of trade, I hear, like cotton-spinning. Oh, yes, cotton-spinners, my dear, get into society—when they are rich enough—and so do the people that write, but not as they used to do. They are commoner now. It seemed so very clever once to write a book; now, I hear, it’s a great deal more clever not to write. I don’t give that as my opinion; ask Cecilia Montagu, it is she who tells me all the new ideas.”

“Have I said so? It is very likely,” said that lady, languidly. “It repays one for a great deal of ingratitude on the part of the world, to have a friend who remembers all one says.”

“Oh, I have the best of memories,” said Lady Betsinda; “and, as I was saying, if you don’t go down on your knees to them they punish you. I was reading somebody’s life the other day— I remember her perfectly well, one used to meet her at Lady Cheddar’s, and one or two other places—rather pretty and lackadaisical, and very, very civil. Poor thing! one saw she was there on sufferance; but if you will believe me—perhaps you have read the book, Cecilia Montagu? you would think she was the center of everything, and all the rest of us nowhere! And so poor Lady Cheddar, a really nice woman, will go down to posterity as the friend of Mrs. So-and-so, whom she asked out of charity! It is enough,” said Lady Betsinda, with indignation, “to make one vow one will never read another book as long as one lives.”

“Mrs. So-and-so!” said Lady Randolph, “I remember her very well. I think everybody was kind to her. There was some story about her husband, and poor Lady Cheddar took her up and fought all her battles—”

“And has been rewarded,” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, softly satirical, “with immortality. Good people, what would you have more? Fifty years hence who will know anything about Lady Cheddar except from the life of Mrs. So-and-so? And so it will be in—another case we know of. After all, you see that, though you make so little account of them, it is the poor authors who hold the keys of fame.”

“As for the other case, that is not a parallel case at all,” Lady Betsinda cried. “Mrs. So-and-so was bad enough, but she did not put poor dear Lady Cheddar in the papers. No, no, she never put her in the papers; and Lady Cheddar was a woman of a certain age, and people did not need to be told what to think about her. These papers are a disgrace, you know; they are dreadful, nobody is safe.”

“But what should we do without them?” said Mrs. Berry-Montagu, lifting up her languishing eyes.

“That’s true enough,” said Lady Betsinda, softening; “one must know what is going on. But about a young girl, you know; I really think about a young girl—”

Here Lady Randolph interposed with rapid and alarmed dumb-show, and Sir Thomas made a stride forward, with such a lowering brow as Lucy had never seen before. What could be the matter? she wondered; but there the discussion stopped short, and she heard no more.

This was the matter, however: that one of the newspapers of which society is so fond had taken up the romantic dedication of “Imogen,” and with an industry that might have been praiseworthy (as the police reports say) if employed in a better cause, had ferreted out a still more romantic edition of the story. It was not true, but what had that mattered? It gave a fancy sketch of Lucy, and her heiress-ship, and her rusticity, and described how the young novelist was to be rewarded with the hand of the wealthy object of his devotion, a devotion which had begun while she was still poor. Lucy had not learned to care for newspapers, and it was not at all difficult to keep it from her. But Sir Thomas gave all belonging to him a great deal of trouble to soothe him down, and persuade him that nobody cared for such assaults.

“It is quite good-natured; there is no harm intended,” Lady Randolph said; “we all get a touch now and then.”

“If that is no harm a punch on the head is still more innocent,” said Sir Thomas, savagely, and it was almost by force, and solely because of the fact that this would be still worse for Lucy, that he was restrained. But Lucy never heard of it, and the article sold off at once, before a month was out, the whole edition of “Imogen.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

GOING HOME.

And now the period of Lucy’s first experiment in life was over. From all the delicacies with which Lady Randolph’s care had surrounded her, and from the atmosphere of refinement to which she had grown accustomed, it was now the moment to descend and go back to the homely house which Jock and she instinctively still called “home.” He had come in from Hampstead a day or two before, and lived with Lucy in her little sitting-room, while all the packing went on. The limit of the six months had been relaxed a little, to suit Lady Randolph’s convenience, who considered (as did her doctor) that after the fatigues of the season Homburg was a necessity for her. On ordinary occasions Lady Randolph spent a month at the Hall before she went to Homburg: but she had not thought it prudent this year to take Lucy there, so they had stayed in town till the parks were like brown paper, and the shutters were up in all the houses. This was a thing that had not happened to Lady Randolph for a long time, and she felt that she was something of a martyr, and that it was for Lucy’s sake. However, at last the long days came to an end. Parliament, rose, and everybody, to the last lingering official, went out of town. Sir Thomas, who had been at various places in the interval, and whose absence had been a real affliction to Lucy, came back again for a day or two before the final break-up. He was not going to Homburg, he was going to Scotland, and it had been arranged that he should act as escort to Lucy on her journey, as Farafield and his own house were on his way to the North. Lady Randolph was not quite sure that she liked this arrangement; the “whole thing,” she said to herself, “had gone too far.” Tom was not prudent; to show his hand to the rest of the guardians at once, and put them all on their guard, was foolish; and as for waiting seven years! Lucy might do it; Lucy, who, her maternal guardian thought, already showed all the signs of being in love; but Tom! he would have a dozen other serious devotions before that. Sir Tom was fond of platonic relationships—he did not want to marry, not being able, indeed, to afford that luxury, yet he liked the gentle excitement of a sentimental friendship. He liked even to feel himself just going over the edge into love, yet keeping himself from going over. He had kept himself from going over so many times, that he knew exactly what twigs to snatch at, and what eddies to take advantage of; therefore it is not to be supposed that there could be much danger to him from a simple girl. But certainly he had gone further than was at all expedient, Lady Randolph’s very anxiety that this time he should be brought to reason, should not catch at any twig, but allow himself to be really carried by the current to the legitimate end, made her unwilling to see matters hurried. Lucy would make him a very nice little wife, and, if he married, his aunt knew that he was far too good a fellow not to be a kind husband; but that Lucy’s simple attractions (even including her fortune, which was a charm that would never fail) could hold him for seven years, was not a thing to be hoped for. She spoke to Sir Tom very strongly on the subject the evening before they separated. Lucy and little Jock—who always was a troublesome inmate to Lady Randolph because of his very quietness, the trance of reading, in which she never could be sure that he was not listening—had gone upstairs early. London was very warm and dusty in these August days; the windows were open, but the air that came in was not of a very satisfactory description. Most of the houses were shut up round about, and in the comparative quiet sounds from the Mews behind were frequently audible. In short, there was about the district the uncomfortable feeling that the appropriate inhabitants had gone, and only a swarm of underground creatures were left, to come forth blinking from their coverts. In-doors the furniture had all been put into pinafores, the pretty nothings on the tables had been laid away, the china locked up in cabinets. Lady Randolph was starting by the morning mail-train.

“You know, Tom,” she said, “I am not at all sure that it is wise for you to go down with Lucy to-morrow.”

“Why, aunt? You know it is on my way,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh, stuff about it being on your way. You know it would not be on your way at all unless you liked to go.”

“Well!” Sir Thomas said, “and after—” he never indulged in the vulgarity of French; but he was given to literal translations, which is more aggravating, and neither one thing nor another, as Lady Randolph said.

“Well, it is just this: most of the guardians live in Farafield, and they will be immediately put on their guard if they see you much with her. There are the Rushtons, the lawyer people, and that Mrs. Stone, who keeps a school. They will both be in arms against you instantly. That father of Lucy’s was an old— I don’t want to be unkind to anybody that is dead and gone, but—

“Most likely he thought it would be better for her not to marry,” said Sir Thomas, tranquilly.

“What folly! well, it would be just like him. I don’t think the will would stand if it were ever brought in to a court of law. There were the maddest provisos! However, unless it can be broken we must hold by it; and, Tom, you must let me say it, you ought to go more cautiously to work.”

“Is it worth the trouble?” he said, indifferently. “My dear aunt, before a man takes the pains to work cautiously he must have set his heart on the prize with some fervor.”

“And haven’t you done so, Tom? Why, I thought you were going too far—and too fast. I did not see any doubt, or want of warmth, I assure you. Fervor! well, perhaps fervor is a strong word; that means difficulty to get over, and resistance, and a struggle perhaps. Poor little Lucy! I don’t think there will be much resistance on her part.”

“I am not at all so sure of that,” he said.

“Why, Tom! Poor child! we can’t blame her. She is only seventeen; and you have a way— Ah, my boy, it is not want of experience that will balk you. You have a way of speaking, and a way of looking. And Lucy is as simple as a little dove, there is no concealment about her. She thinks there is nobody like you.”

“Well, perhaps you are right. She thinks there is nobody like me,” said Sir Tom, with something of that softening of vanity which makes a man’s countenance imbecile when he thinks he is admired: “but,” he added, with a little laugh, “Lucy is no more in love with me than— I am with you. Like her, I think there is nobody like you—”

“Oh, Tom— Tom, you are a deceiver! My dear, that is nonsense. There is no tie between her and you. The very first night I saw it. Fancy her sitting up to chatter to you—and chattering, she who is so quiet! Why, she is a great deal more open, more at her ease with you than with me.”

“All so many things against me,” he said; “she is not in love with me, as I tell you, any more than I am with you.”

Lady Randolph was struck with great surprise, and so many things poured into her mind to be said that she was silent, and did not say anything, looking at him with confused impatience, and able to bring out nothing save a “but—but,” of bewilderment. At last she enunciated with difficulty and hesitation, “If this is true, which I can’t believe, do you mind, Tom?”

“Not much,” he said, then laughed, and looked her in the face. “You do not understand me, aunt. I think it quite likely that if it were put before her as a suitable arrangement, Lucy might make up her mind to marry me. She is beginning to get perplexed in her life. She has been on the point of confiding in me two or three times.”

“What?” said Lady Randolph, in great excitement. She could not think of anything but love about which a girl could be confidential, and Bertie Russell, like a Jack-in-the-box, suddenly jumped up in her anxious brain. But Sir Thomas shook his head.

“That is exactly what I can not tell you,” he said. “I thought it might be some entanglement with that young fellow of the book; but it is not that. It is quite possible she might marry me—”

“Well, but, Tom, why should you be so very particular? Think what it would be for the estate. You might pay off everything, and regain the first position in the county. You ought to have the first position in the county. What is Lord Langton in comparison with the Randolphs? A nobody; and all this that girl could do. Only think what her fortune could do. I am not mercenary— I don’t think I am mercenary—but when you just realize it. Oh, how often I have said to myself, your uncle had no right to marry me. He ought to have married somebody with money. And now if you can set it right, why, oh, why, should you have any absurd scruples? Of course, Lucy would be very glad; and she would make you a good little wife. She is not impassioned—she never will be out of her wits about any one; if that is what you want, Tom.”

“No, I don’t think that is what I want,” he said; “but in the meantime we need not quarrel about it; for you know there are the guardians to be taken into consideration, and it would be foolish to show one’s hand. And then there is plenty of time. One ought to go cautiously to work.”

He laughed as he quoted all her own little speeches to her. But for her part Lady Randolph could have cried—how difficult it is to be patient when you are anxious! She had been alarmed by what she thought a too hasty progress; now she was cast down to the depths of trouble by this sudden suggestion that no progress at all had been made. She did not know what to do. It was no use speaking to Tom, so self-willed was he—always taking his own way. She had no patience with him. Of course Lucy liked him—how could she help it? And to think that he would run the risk of losing all that for the merest fantastic nonsense! Oh, she had no patience with him! But when he only laughed and made a joke of it all what was the use of saying anything? Poor Lady Randolph! She could not let things take their own way. She was unhappy not to be able to guide them, and yet she knew that she could not guide them. Either they would go on too quickly or they would not go on at all.

The effect of this conversation was, that she started in a much less cheerful and hopeful state of mind for that yearly renovation at Homburg. She tried to make a parting effort for Sir Tom, when she said good-bye to Lucy, who was to leave by a later train. “If Tom stays at the Hall, and there is anything you want advice about, never hesitate to apply to him, my love,” she said; “you may have every confidence in him, as much confidence as in myself.”

“Oh, yes, Lady Randolph,” said Lucy, with the warmest sincerity. “I should ask him anything—he has always been so kind to me.”

“It is more than kindness—he has a real interest in you, Lucy; and you need never fear to trust Tom. He has a heart of gold, and he is the truest friend in the world,” Lady Randolph said. She kissed her charge with fervor. Could she say more? When she turned round who should be watching her but Tom himself, with that twinkle in his eye. The poor lady felt as if she had been detected. She made her exit quite crestfallen, while Sir Thomas paused to tell Lucy he would come back for her half an hour before the train started. “It is not everybody that would make himself a railway porter for your service, is it, Miss Lucy?” he said, laughing. “Depend upon it, however specious other people may look, it is ‘Codlin’s the friend.’” He went out after his aunt, still laughing; but as for Lucy, she looked after him somewhat bewildered. Her reading was not her strong point, and she could not think what “Codlin” had to do with it, or who that personage was.

But what a different Lucy it was that took possession of a special carriage reserved for her own party, to Farafield, with her maid and mountain of luggage, from the humble little Lucy, with two black frocks, who had come to town with Lady Randolph in February. Her groom, with her horses and Jock’s pony, had gone the night before. Jock himself, embracing a big book, was the thing of all her surroundings that was the least changed. Lucy’s mind, indeed, was not altered, as were her outward circumstances, but it had expanded and widened, so that she became a little giddy as the journey approached its close, half pleased, half alarmed to think of the old life, the familiar streets, the old white parlor with its blue curtains, and the view from the window across the common to Mrs. Stone’s school. Sir Thomas, who had traveled with her part of the way, now departing to the smoking-carriage, now coming to inquire into her comfort and the progress she was making in the novel with which he had thoughtfully provided her, joined the party at the last important station.

“You have scarcely read twenty pages,” he said, reproachfully, “after all my care in choosing you a pretty book. You have read five times as much, Jock.”

Jock looked up on being addressed. Though he was many fathoms deep below the surface, he always heard when he was spoken to, and often when he was not spoken to. He was lying across the arm of one seat, with his book lying on the cushions of another, in a dark blue valley below him. He gave a sidelong look of disdain to his questioner.

“Do you count your pages?” said Jock, with contemptuous satire. “I can tell by what the reading is.”

“Hush, Jock! I was not reading at all,” Lucy said, “but thinking.”

“And what might the thinking be? regretting town, or welcoming the country? We’ll give her, Jock, two pennies for her thoughts.”

“You know,” said Lucy, “it is not either town or country I was thinking of. I was thinking of Lady Randolph’s, and all that was new to me there; and of some things I have had to do, and how I have lived so different from everything before, and now coming back—home. It always was home, I can’t call it anything else; but it will be different again. There is no more papa. That does not make me unhappy,” said Lucy, the tears coming into her eyes, “for it was what he always trained me to expect; but it will be dreary to go into the house and to find that he is not there, sitting by the fire—with the will.”

“The will?” Sir Thomas had no fear to be thought inquisitive, his face was full of kindly interest and sympathy.

“Did I never tell you? that was all his thought. It was his amusement, as long—well, as long as Jock could remember. Don’t you recollect, Jock, how he would sit and write a little bit, and rub his hands, and read it to me when I came in? That is how I know so well all he wished me to do. He would put down his newspaper when something occurred to him, and write it down. It pleased him more than anything. Don’t you think it is a great pleasure, when any one is gone, to know exactly what they wished you to do?”

“It is a great bondage sometimes,” Sir Thomas said.

“I don’t think I shall feel it a bondage. But somehow going back is almost stranger than going away. The rooms at the Terrace will look small; and it will not be prettily furnished; and I shall not have Lady Randolph to talk to, nor the carriage, nor the visitors—”

“These things are easily got, even the visitors. As for Lady Randolph, perhaps you can put up with me instead. I am very fond of being talked to, and you know she recommended me as her substitute.”

“That is very true,” said Lucy, with her usual calm; “but then you are going to Scotland to shoot. You are only here on your way.”

“There is no saying, if you consult me a great deal, and give me a great many interesting subjects to think about how long I may linger on my way.”

“Oh, as for that!” said Lucy, “there is one thing—very interesting; but then I am not sure if I should tell it to any one, though it would be a great, a very great comfort. I tried to tell Lady Randolph once, and ask her—and I have wanted so much to tell you—to ask you—”

“Well, I am a sort of an uncle, you know; that was the relationship we decided upon,” Sir Thomas said.

Lucy did not say anything. She laughed, looking at him with a very winning confidence and trust in her eyes. They were quite unabashed in their modest gaze, conscious of no timidity, but there was a gentle affection in them which touched him. However, they were now drawing very near Farafield, and even her composed heart began to beat. She called Jock, very reluctant to be roused from his book, to look at the church-tower, the spire of the town hall, the big roofs of the market. “I don’t want to see them,” Jock said; all he wanted was his story. Perhaps it was her story that made Lucy so animated, one not yet written in any book.

Sir Thomas had intended to take Lucy home, to see her in her old-new habitation, and make himself acquainted with her surroundings; and to this end he had telegraphed to his servants to send a carriage to meet the train. But Sir Thomas had formed no idea in his mind of the real aspect of the other side of Lucy’s life; and it had not occurred to him that the people with whom she was going to stay had a right to guide her, equal to that which his aunt exercised. It was a shock to him to see that respectable couple who stood on the very edge of the station waiting for the train, and moved along by its side, panting yet beaming, as it gradually came to a standstill. “Welcome back, my darlings! welcome home, Lucy and Jock!” the woman said. She had not the least pretension to the title of lady. She was enveloped in a large shawl, though it was summer, and she was red and hot. She seized Lucy in her arms, pushing him away as he helped the girl out of the carriage. “Oh, my pet! we have been counting the days, Ford and I; and a’n’t you thankful to get home after being banished among strangers?” Sir Thomas was confounded. He had thought Lucy was to be pitied for the fantastic arrangement which transferred her from his aunt’s house to the care of the old servants, or poor relations, where her position and surroundings would be so different; but the suggestion that she had been banished among strangers took him altogether by surprise. He had been about to take Lucy to the carriage which was waiting; but in a moment she was separated from him, surrounded by these strange people, and drawn in the midst of them toward a fly which was standing near. It was a curious lesson for Sir Tom. He stood aside and looked on while she was taken out of his hands and deposited in the shabbier vehicle, with a sense of the ludicrous which struggled with a less agreeable feeling. There was another group on the platform to whom Lucy’s arrival was very interesting. This was the Rushton family, the lawyer himself, with his wife on his arm, and a tall youth, clad in a light summer suit, with his hands in his pockets, who lounged up and down the railway station after his parents, looking very much out of place, and somewhat ashamed of himself. Mrs. Rushton dashed boldly in, into the midst of the salutations of the Fords. “I must say a word to Lucy,” she cried. “We have just come in for a moment to welcome you home. Here, is your guardian, Lucy, and Raymond, your old playfellow.” It was all that Sir Tom could do not to laugh out. But the laugh was not pleasurable. He thought that anything more artless than this presentation of the old playfellow at the very earliest moment could not be; but yet what was he himself doing, and what were his inducements to give so much time and attention to this little girl? It was like a scene in the theater, but so much more dramatic than scenes in the theater often are. Lucy, in the midst, so eagerly secured by Mrs. Ford, so effusively embraced by the other lady, the leader of the opposition forces; while old Ford stood jealously on one side, and Mr. Rushton, with his hand held out, looked genial and affectionate on the other. The Fords were gloomy, concentrating their whole attention on the opposing band, whereas the Rushtons, who were the assailants, were directing all their smiles and caresses to Lucy, ignoring her relations. “Ray— Ray— I know you are dying to shake hands with Lucy—come quick and say, how d’ye do. There is no time for any more just now; but I felt I must come just to give you a kiss, and bid you welcome,” said Mrs. Rushton. The lawyer for his part, shook a finger at her. “Fine stories Chervil has had to tell about you, my young lady,” he said.

“Lucy,” cried Mrs. Ford in sharp tones, “the fly is waiting, and I am ready to drop. Whoever wishes to see you can come and see you at the Terrace.”

As for Lucy herself, she was so anxious to be civil to everybody, and so unaccustomed to the conflict that had thus suddenly sprung up around her, that she could not tell what to do. She looked round wistfully toward Sir Tom, who, for his part, stood quite outside the immediate circle round her, smiling to himself with that quick perception of the “fun” of the situation, which was, Lucy thought with vexation, the chief thing he thought of. She felt wounded that he should laugh at her; but then he was always laughing. Little Jock, on the other side, was a spectator too; but a scene has a very different aspect according as you look upon it from above or from below. Jock was low down among the feet of all these people. Mrs. Rushton nearly brushed him away with her ample gown; Ray all but knocked him down as he came forward sheepishly to shake hands with Lucy. There was something savage in the energy with which little Jock clutched at his sister’s dress. “I say, can’t they let us alone? I want to get home— I want to get home,” cried the little fellow. Nobody took the slightest notice of little Jock. Sir Tom, in the distance, laughed more and more in his mustache, but ruefully. He came forward at last and lifted Jock out from among the other people’s legs. “Come and stand here with me, old fellow; you and I are left out in the cold,” said Sir Tom. The tall man and the tiny boy stood out of the crowd and watched while Lucy was hustled into the fly, Sir Tom laughing, Jock alarmed and gloomy. “She’s going away without me,” Jock said with a naïf consternation. Sir Thomas laughed. “Your day and mine is over, old man,” he said.

But Jock at least was not to be forgotten. “Jock, Jock! where are you?” Lucy cried, anxiously looking out. The child pulled his hand out of Sir Tom’s and rushed away; then the whole party were packed inside the fly, Ford with his knees up to his chin bolt upright, Mrs. Ford sunk back into a corner, loosening her bonnet-strings, and “worrited” beyond all description, while Mrs. Rushton stood kissing her hand on the platform. “If you please, Sir Thomas, what am I to do?” said a troubled voice as he looked after them. Then Sir Tom laughed out. It was Lucy’s maid, who had been left behind with a number of small matters. He put her into the carriage with secret glee, and sent her off after her mistress. Old Trevor himself could not have made a more grotesque contrast between the old life and the new; how the old man would have chuckled had he seen it! the great heiress shut up in the close fly—the somewhat frightened maid ensconced in the luxurious corner of the open carriage glittering along with a pair of fine horses, and all the prance and dance with which the coachman of a county family thinks it right to maintain the credit of his house in a country town—following the dustiest and stuffiest of flies. This was carrying out his principles on their broadest basis. Sir Thomas chuckled too; it was a piece of malice after his own heart. “If that’s so, let’s show fight,” he said to himself.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE TERRACE.

Four persons in a fly on a hot August day, one of them large, and warm, and “worrited,” another very tall, with knees up to his chin, do not make a very agreeable party. Lucy, unaccustomed to traveling, had the whirl of the railway still in her head, and its dust oppressing her lungs and spirits; and she had the sensation of rush, and hurry, and crowding, which was peculiarly disagreeable to her orderly mind, and the uncomfortable consciousness of having abandoned her kind companion without a word. Indeed she seemed suddenly to have ceased to be a free agent. She had lost her independence, and even her personality, and had been carried off like a bale of goods, like a boy long-lost and suddenly found again, but no way consulted as to what was to be done with it. Was it this, or was it the mere vulgarity and discomfort of her surroundings, that made her heart sick? The fly had been the only vehicle she had known until six months ago, and the Fords her constant companions, and friendly notice from Mrs. Rushton, a thing highly prized and thought of. And she had only been six months away! But as Lucy drove in at the gloomy gateway of the little inclosure, which separated the Terrace from the road, and saw the well-known door open, and looked up wistfully at the well-known windows, there was no revulsion of happier feeling. “Here we are at home, Jock,” she said faintly, trying to feel as happy as she ought to do. “Is it?” said Jock indifferently. His little face was blank too; they had both fallen out of the clouds, down from the heights, and the contact with mother earth was hard. Lucy felt ashamed of herself that this should be, but she could not help it. It was all so different. Was it possible that the “Aunty Ford” of old was like this? Mrs. Ford was still wearing her mourning. She had crape flowers upon her bonnet, awful counterfeits of nature, corn flowers with stamens of prickly jet. Her shawl was huddled up about her neck, she had taken off her black gloves, as it was so warm, and her face was of a fine crimson. As for Ford, on the contrary, he was neatness itself. He wore a little checked tie very stiffly starched, and his waistcoat, and the thin legs which were so prominent, were of checked black and white in a large pattern. Mourning is not so necessary for a man as for a woman. Mrs. Ford’s crape flowers, with which her bonnet bristled, were intended for the highest respect. Lucy’s depressed sensations were enlivened by a wondering doubt whether she could prevail upon the good woman to abandon these unearthly flowers. Mrs. Ford was talking all the way. “Did you see those Rushtons,” she said, “making a dead set at Lucy the very first moment? one would have thought they would have had more pride, and that Raymond, that son of theirs! as if Lucy, with the best in London at her feet, would look twice at a Raymond? Oh, yes, you’ll see, they’ll be all down upon you like locusts, Lucy; not a young man in the town that won’t be thrown at your head. It is your money they’re after—only your money. What is that carriage following behind us? It is coming here, I declare; it’s somebody that has got scent of you already—that’s what it is to be an heiress; but it can’t be so bad as what you’ve gone through in London.”

“It is only Elizabeth,” said Lucy; “Oh, how like Sir Tom! he has put her in the carriage; Elizabeth—that is my maid. Would you rather I had not brought a maid, Aunt Ford?”

“A maid— I never see the use of them. You could have had Jane to help you when you wanted any extra dressing,” said Mrs. Ford, with gloom on her countenance. “What did I tell you, Ford? I said Lady Randolph would be sending some spy to keep a watch upon us. Do you call that a maid? sitting up as grand as possible in the carriage, as if she were the lady and you the servant. It’s like Sir Tom, is it? I don’t doubt but it’s like Sir Tom, he’s well enough known about here. He’s not one you should ever have spoken to, or sat down in the same room with him, if my consent had been asked. Many’s the story I could tell about Sir Tom, as you call him; oh, I don’t doubt it’s quite like him! and many a one he has ruined with his smiling ways.”

Jock had not been able so much as to open his book while he rattled along the Farafield streets in the fly, but he had not paid much attention to what was going on; now, however, moved by the practical necessity of getting out of the carriage, he awoke to what was going on around him. He had heard the voice of Mrs. Ford in this same key before. And he looked up suddenly with a surprised but serious countenance.

“Why is Aunty Ford scolding, and us just come? Is it you, or is it me, Lucy?” the little fellow said.

“Me scolding! God forbid!” cried the excited woman, and instead of getting out of the fly, she cried, and then, in a voice broken with sobs, entreated their pardon. “It’s all my anxiety,” she said, “I can’t abide that anything but what’s good should come to you. I’d like to keep you safe, like the apple of my eye; and that’s what Ford thinks too.”

This scene was rather an unpleasant beginning to the second chapter of life on which Lucy was now entering. She stood on the pavement before the familiar door, and tried to occupy the attention of Elizabeth, and keep her from observing Mrs. Ford’s agitation and tears. Elizabeth was too refined a person to take any notice. She was the very last improvement in the way of a maid, and could have written her mistress’s letters had that been desirable, a most useful attendant to ladies “whose education had been neglected.” Lady Randolph had not been at all sure of Lucy’s grammar or her h’s when she secured such a treasure. But fortunately Elizabeth’s superiority went so far as to have convinced her of the inexpediency of taking any notice of her employer’s private affairs. She turned her back upon the fly, where Mrs. Ford was sobbing. She had the air of seeing nothing.

“Sir Thomas made me come in the carriage, Miss Trevor. I could not help it,” she said.

“It makes me so happy to see you at home again,” Mrs. Ford said, commanding herself. “It is silly, I know, but I can’t help crying when I am happy. Come and carry in Miss Lucy’s things, Jane. Isn’t it a pleasure to see her back again? And you follow me, my darling, and I’ll let you see what we have done for you,” she said, with some triumph. Lucy went upstairs with a serious face. She thought she knew what she would find there, everything the same, no difference except in one thing—the old man sitting by the chimney-corner, with the big blue folios open on the writing-table, spreading the “Times” on his knees, rubbing his hands as she came in, looking up at her with his spectacles pushed up on his forehead. He would not be there, but the place would be full of him and of his image. She took Jock’s hand into hers, and led him upstairs. It was a pilgrimage upon which the two orphan children were going. “Come and see where papa used to sit,” she said. She had never made great demonstrations of sorrow, but her heart was full of her father and tears were in her eyes.

Mrs. Ford received them at the door with a look of triumph; but it was with consternation that Lucy saw what had happened. The whole room had been transmogrified. The Fords had given all their minds, and a great deal of money, which was of more immediate value, to the great work. Wherever it had been blue now it was pink. White curtains, very stiff with starch fluttered at the windows. There was a great deal of gilding about—gilt cornices, gilt chairs, gilt cabinets, and over the mantel-piece an enormous gilt frame inclosing a portrait of old Trevor, which the good people had caused to be painted by a local artist from an old daguerreotype, all with the kind intention of giving pleasure to Lucy. She gave a cry of dismay as she came in. Her father’s chair and his writing-table—objects which would have recalled him so much more tenderly than this portrait—had been carried away. In their place was what the upholsterer called a “lady’s chair,” covered in one of the newest and most fashionable cretonnes, stout little cupids disporting themselves on a pink ground, and a gilt and highly decorated work-table. Lucy stood at the door of the room with the checked tears feeling very hot and heavy behind her eyes.

“This is all for you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Ford, restored to good humor by the satisfaction with which she regarded her work; “everything in it has been done for you. We have been working at it these three months and more. If you had but heard us talking—’Do you think she would like this? and do you think she’d like that?’ and Ford would say, ‘I saw a little cabinet in William’s would just please Lucy,’ or ‘There’s some new curtains at Hemsdon’s are the very thing.’ We’ve done nothing else these three months. I declare I don’t think I ever slaved so much in my life—to get carpets that matched and a nice chintz, and the rugs and everything. But we kept the two old white rugs. Mr. Hemsdon said they were beauties. I was determined,” said the good woman, “that you should find something just as pretty as your fine London drawing-rooms. ‘She sha’n’t come home and find nothing but a dingy old place to sit in, and think my Lady Randolph’s is a paradise,’ is what I said to Ford, and he backed me up in everything. And now here it is, Lucy, my darling, and it’s all for you, and I hope you’ll be as happy in it as I and Ford wish you to be. I couldn’t say more if I were to talk from this to Christmas,” Mrs. Ford concluded with a tremulous warmth of enthusiasm which arose partly from the delightful consciousness of giving her charge a pleasant surprise, and partly from a quiver of uncertainty as to whether Lucy’s delight would be equal to the occasion. She added instantaneously, in a tone which was ready to be defiant, “You may have seen finer in London: I can’t say; but this I know, you’ll find nothing like it in Farafield, search where you may!”

“Thank you, Aunt Ford,” said Lucy faintly. “It is very pretty—but— I was thinking of papa.”

These words checked the rising disappointment and displeasure in the mind of Mrs. Ford, who, if not very refined in her perceptions, was kind, and had a sincere if jealous affection for the girl committed to her care. She took Lucy into her arms and consoled her with much petting and caressing. “Yes, my pet, I knew you would feel it. Yes, my petty! Of course it brings it all back. But after the first you’ll find the change of the furniture very comforting,” Mrs. Ford said.

Lucy did not know what to say when the first pangs of recollection were over. She went round the room and looked at everything, and did her best to praise. Six months ago she would have thought it all beautiful. Even now she had no opinion on the matter, or taste that she was aware of; but she had been six months away in a different atmosphere, and nothing could undo or change that fact. She said everything she could to show her gratitude. Whatever might be said about the curtains or the carpets, the kindness was indisputable; and it was all very pretty, probably quite as nice as the other way; but it was different. That was all that was to be said—everything was different. She placed herself in the lady’s chair which stood in the place of her father’s old seat, and found it very comfortable. It was not comfort that was wanting; it was— Lucy did not know what—it was different. Where she sat she could see, through the windows and lines of the curtains, the White House shining in the afternoon sunshine, and the road across the common, still green with all the freshness of summer. It was very different from the burned-up parks and the rows of London houses, but not in the same way.

“It is all for you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Ford, not quite satisfied with the commendation she had received. “For my part, there is nothing I like so well as my own parlor. It may be vulgar, but that’s my taste. I don’t want to be moving about all day long from the drawing-room to the dining-room. I like to feel myself at home. But you are young, and that’s a different thing. You have to do as other people do. There’s one thing—just one thing I can’t give in to: I can’t begin at my time of life to be eating my dinner when I should be having my tea; tea’s far more to me than any dinner, I never was a great eater, and as for wine, I can’t abide it. A cup of tea and a bit of toast—that’s what I like. I’ll see to your dinner if you wish, like in your poor papa’s time, but I can’t change, that’s just the one thing I can’t do.”

“I do not care for dinner,” said Lucy; “I will do whatever you do, it does not matter to me.”

“If that’s so,” said Mrs. Ford brightening, and she came up to her charge and kissed her affectionately, “whatever we can get, or whatever we can do to make you happy, Lucy, you have only to say it: never mind the expense. If there is one thing you have a fancy for more than another, if it should be game, or whatever it is, you shall have it. And this room is yours, my pet. You’ll excuse me sitting here; I think there’s nothing like my parlor; but when you want me you can always send for me. And here you shall always find everything kept nice; and as for a cup of tea, whenever you want it— I shouldn’t wonder if you were kept very short up there.”

Mrs. Ford jerked her thumb over her shoulder by way of indicating Lucy’s former abode. “I know what fine ladies are,” she said: “a fine outside and not much within. Horses and carriages and all that show, and footmen waiting, and silver dishes on the table, but not much inside.”

“Lady Randolph was not like that,” Lucy said faintly. She did not know whether to laugh or to cry; but her companion took her hesitation as a proof of the correctness of her own judgment, and was triumphant.

“I know ’em,” she said. “I don’t give myself any airs Lucy, but I know you’ll find nothing like that here. No show, but everything good, and plenty of it, and not so much fuss made about you—for we’ve got no ends to serve, Ford and me—but if there’s a thing you want you shall have it; that is our way, and I don’t see but what you may be very happy here. Keep all these folks that will be gathering round you, and making believe to adore you, at a distance, and keep yourself to yourself, and don’t put your faith in the Rushtons, nor the Stones, nor any of the Farafield folks; and I don’t see, Lucy my pet, but what you may be very happy here. And now, my darling, I’ll go down-stairs and see after the tea.”

Lucy was left alone accordingly, seated in the familiar room, so changed and transformed, and looking out somewhat drearily upon the common, which had not changed, which she had crossed so often in those old days that were never to come back, that could not come back, neither the simple habits of them, nor the gentle ease of mind and happy ignorance of everything beyond their quiet round. It was not a cheerful programme which her present guardian had traced for her, and Lucy, sitting very still, not caring to move, in the most strangely complete and depressing solitude which she had ever been conscious of, went further in her thoughts than Mrs. Ford. Had it all been a mistake? Her father’s favorite theory, his pet whim about her, his determination to divide her life between the different worlds of society, one part of it on the higher level, one on the lower, was that to prove itself at once a hopeless blunder? Lucy felt too much dulled and stupefied by the sudden change to be able to think about it; a sensation as of a sudden fall, a precipitate descent down, down, into a world she no longer understood, pervaded her being. Lady Randolph’s world had not been a very lofty one; was it possible that it was the mere external change from one kind of house to another, from a companion who dressed with exquisite taste to one who huddled on her common clothes anyhow, and wore crape flowers in her bonnet; from old, soft, mossy Turkey carpets to brilliant modern Brussels, that gave her this sensation of downfall? Lucy did not ask herself the question, nor did it even suggest itself in any formal way to her mind, only a vague sense of the impossibility of the return, the radical change in all things, the space she had traversed which could not be gone back, overwhelmed her vaguely. If it had been a poor country cottage, a rustic farm-house, real poverty to contrast with the soft surroundings of wealth, the contrast might have been salutary, and it might have been natural. But the Terrace was nothing but a vulgar, unintelligent copy of the house she had come from, the life set before her now was but a poor imitation of that she had left, but narrowed and limited and shut in, cut off by jealous precautions from all the human fellowship that made the other attractive. Ford and his wife, in their little stuffy parlor, at their teatable, eating their toast and their shrimps, were as respectable in themselves as Lady Randolph at the head of the pretty table covered with flowers, softly lighted, and noiselessly served. Probably they were more honest, more strictly sincere, than she, and their love for Lucy was a very genuine love, more profound than her easy affections. But how was it? Lucy could not tell—to step down all in a moment from Lady Randolph to the Fords was something incomprehensible and impossible. She could not go back these six months, the new life had claimed her; she was not capable of resuming the old where she had left it off. This feeling humiliated and depressed her, she could not tell how or why. Had they been living in a little cottage in the country, had they been quite poor, so that she should have had homely services to do for them, help to give, that would have been practicable; but to come back to the Terrace with her maid, and her horse, and her groom, and her new habits, to have all the indulgences without any of the graces of existence! Lucy sat sadly in the pink room, all newly bedizened and fine, dressed out by ignorance and kindness for her pleasure, but not pleasing her at all, and pondered, dreary and down-hearted. Was it possible that papa himself had not understood? that he did not know what the real differences were, but had made to himself some picture of extravagant splendor on the one side, to be tempered by the Fords and their respectable parlor on the other? Alas! Lucy felt more and more, as she reflected, that poor papa did not understand. It made her heart sore to sit in the place where he had sat, and to contemplate this, and to feel that perhaps, as Sir Thomas had said, to follow out all those regulations of his, which she had thought a happiness and consolation, might turn out nothing less than a bondage. Everything seemed somewhat blank before her, as she sat thus solitary. She knew the routine so well, there was no margin of the unexpected, no novelty to carry her on. She had been so deep in thought that she had not felt a pull at her dress several times repeated. At last Jock could have patience no longer.

“I say,” he cried, looking up from his old position upon the great white rug, “Lucy, it is not any good to think.”

Lucy was not greatly given to that exercise of thinking, and, to tell the truth, she had not found it to be of very much use.

“What makes you say so, Jock?”

“Oh, because I have tried—often,” said the little fellow; “before we went away from here, and after, when I went to school. It’s no good, you never find out anything; you wonder and wonder, but you never know any better. Do you think now,” said Jock, with a gleam of moisture in his eyes, “that he ever sees us now, or hears what we are talking about? I wonder—often—”

“I—hope so, Jock,” said Lucy; but as she remembered what she had just been thinking she faltered a little, and was not so sure that this was desirable, as in the abstract it seemed to be.

“I wonder,” said the little boy—thoughts such as had filled her mind had perhaps been vaguely floating across his firmament also. “I wonder—if he would miss his funny old table and his big blue paper if he were to come back now.”

“He has now something better; we will not think of that any longer,” said Lucy, drying her wet eyes.

“But we have got to think of it,” said Jock, reflectively contradicting himself; “that is funny, everything is funny. There is Aunty Ford at the foot of the stairs calling us to go down to tea.”