dy Lufton?"

"Yes; it was Lady Lufton."

"Why, Lucy; I did not know that you and her ladyship were such
friends."

"She had something particular she wanted to say," said Lucy, avoiding
the question, and avoiding also Mrs. Crawley's eyes; and then she sat
down in her usual chair.

"It was nothing unpleasant, I hope."

"No, nothing at all unpleasant; nothing of that kind.--Oh, Mrs.
Crawley, I'll tell you some other time, but pray do not ask me now."
And then she got up and escaped, for it was absolutely necessary that
she should be alone.

When she reached her own room--that in which the children usually
slept--she made a great effort to compose herself, but not altogether
successfully. She got out her paper and blotting-book, intending, as
she said to herself, to write to Fanny, knowing, however, that the
letter when written would be destroyed; but she was not able even
to form a word. Her hand was unsteady and her eyes were dim and her
thoughts were incapable of being fixed. She could only sit, and
think, and wonder and hope; occasionally wiping the tears from her
eyes, and asking herself why her present frame of mind was so painful
to her? During the last two or three months she had felt no fear
of Lord Lufton, had always carried herself before him on equal
terms, and had been signally capable of doing so when he made his
declaration to her at the parsonage; but now she looked forward with
an undefined dread to the first moment in which she should see him.
And then she thought of a certain evening she had passed at Framley
Court, and acknowledged to herself that there was some pleasure in
looking back to that. Griselda Grantly had been there, and all the
constitutional powers of the two families had been at work to render
easy a process of love-making between her and Lord Lufton. Lucy had
seen and understood it all, without knowing that she understood it,
and had, in a certain degree, suffered from beholding it. She had
placed herself apart, not complaining--painfully conscious of some
inferiority, but, at the same time, almost boasting to herself that
in her own way she was the superior. And then he had come behind
her chair, whispering to her, speaking to her his first words of
kindness and good-nature, and she had resolved that she would be his
friend--his friend, even though Griselda Grantly might be his wife.
What those resolutions were worth had soon become manifest to her.
She had soon confessed to hers