excepting, of course, the satellites of the nursery. And then in
three minutes Lucy was standing by the fire. Those three minutes
had been taken up in embraces between the husband and the wife. Let
who would be brought as a visitor to the house, after a fortnight's
absence, she would kiss him before she welcomed any one else. But
then she turned to Lucy, and began to assist her with her cloaks.

"Oh, thank you," said Lucy; "I'm not cold,--not very at least. Don't
trouble yourself: I can do it." But here she had made a false boast,
for her fingers had been so numbed that she could not do nor undo
anything. They were all in black, of course; but the sombreness of
Lucy's clothes struck Fanny much more than her own. They seemed to
have swallowed her up in their blackness, and to have made her almost
an emblem of death. She did not look up, but kept her face turned
towards the fire, and seemed almost afraid of her position.

"She may say what she likes, Fanny," said Mark, "but she is very
cold. And so am I,--cold enough. You had better go up with her to her
room. We won't do much in the dressing way to-night; eh, Lucy?" In
the bedroom Lucy thawed a little, and Fanny, as she kissed her, said
to herself that she had been wrong as to that word "plain." Lucy, at
any rate, was not plain.

"You will be used to us soon," said Fanny, "and then I hope we shall
make you comfortable." And she took her sister-in-law's hand and
pressed it. Lucy looked up at her, and her eyes then were tender
enough. "I am sure I shall be happy here," she said, "with you.
But--but--dear papa!" And then they got into each other's arms,
and had a great bout of kissing and crying. "Plain," said Fanny to
herself, as at last she got her guest's hair smoothed and the tears
washed from her eyes--"plain! She has the loveliest countenance that
I ever looked at in my life!"

"Your sister is quite beautiful," she said to Mark, as they talked
her over alone before they went to sleep that night.

"No, she's not beautiful; but she's a very good girl, and clever
enough too, in her sort of way."

"I think her perfectly lovely. I never saw such eyes in my life
before."

"I'll leave her in your hands, then; you shall get her a husband."

"That mayn't be so easy. I don't think she'd marry anybody."

"Well, I hope not. But she seems to me to be exactly cut out for an
old maid;--to be Aunt Lucy for ever and ever to your bairns."

"And so she shall, with all my hea