than that I should help my mother; every one else is behaving
very badly." She only felt irritable and petulant, and anxious to do
what she was not expected to do, and in this spirit she proceeded with
the conversation.

"Oh, mother, what rubbish you talk! Of course I'm not tired of Windy
Corner."

"Then why not say so at once, instead of considering half an hour?"

She laughed faintly, "Half a minute would be nearer."

"Perhaps you would like to stay away from your home altogether?"

"Hush, mother! People will hear you"; for they had entered Mudie's. She
bought Baedeker, and then continued: "Of course I want to live at home;
but as we are talking about it, I may as well say that I shall want to
be away in the future more than I have been. You see, I come into my
money next year."

Tears came into her mother's eyes.

Driven by nameless bewilderment, by what is in older people termed
"eccentricity," Lucy determined to make this point clear. "I've seen the
world so little--I felt so out of things in Italy. I have seen so little
of life; one ought to come up to London more--not a cheap ticket like
to-day, but to stop. I might even share a flat for a little with some
other girl."

"And mess with typewriters and latch-keys," exploded Mrs. Honeychurch.
"And agitate and scream, and be carried off kicking by the police. And
call it a Mission--when no one wants you! And call it Duty--when
it means that you can't stand your own home! And call it Work--when
thousands of men are starving with the competition as it is! And then
to prepare yourself, find two doddering old ladies, and go abroad with
them."

"I want more independence," said Lucy lamely; she knew that she wanted
something, and independence is a useful cry; we can always say that we
have not got it. She tried to remember her emotions in Florence: those
had been sincere and passionate, and had suggested beauty rather than
short skirts and latch-keys. But independence was certainly her cue.

"Very well. Take your independence and be gone. Rush up and down and
round the world, and come back as thin as a lath with the bad food.
Despise the house that your father built and the garden that he planted,
and our dear view--and then share a flat with another girl."

Lucy screwed up her mouth and said: "Perhaps I spoke hastily."

"Oh, goodness!" her mother flashed. "How you do remind me of Charlotte
Bartlett!"

"Charlotte!" flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last