er placed I should have been down in the
servants' hall. Lady Lufton--she dragged me out, and then cautioned
me, and then, then-- Why is Lady Lufton to have it all her own way?
Why am I to be sacrificed for her? I did not want to know Lady
Lufton, or any one belonging to her."

"I cannot think that you have any cause to blame Lady Lufton, nor,
perhaps, to blame anybody very much."

"Well, no, it has been all my own fault; though, for the life of me,
Fanny, going back and back, I cannot see where I took the first false
step. I do not know where I went wrong. One wrong thing I did, and it
is the only thing that I do not regret."

"What was that, Lucy?"

"I told him a lie."

Mrs. Robarts was altogether in the dark, and feeling that she was
so, she knew that she could not give counsel as a friend or a sister.
Lucy had begun by declaring--so Mrs. Robarts thought--that nothing
had passed between her and Lord Lufton but words of most trivial
import, and yet she now accused herself of falsehood, and declared
that that falsehood was the only thing which she did not regret!

"I hope not," said Mrs. Robarts. "If you did, you were very unlike
yourself."

"But I did, and were he here again, speaking to me in the same way, I
should repeat it. I know I should. If I did not, I should have all
the world on me. You would frown on me, and be cold. My darling
Fanny, how would you look if I really displeasured you?"

"I don't think you will do that, Lucy."

"But if I told him the truth I should, should I not? Speak now. But
no, Fanny, you need not speak. It was not the fear of you; no, nor
even of her: though Heaven knows that her terrible glumness would be
quite unendurable."

"I cannot understand you, Lucy. What truth or what untruth can you
have told him, if, as you say, there has been nothing between you but
ordinary conversation?"

Lucy then got up from the sofa, and walked twice the length of the
room before she spoke. Mrs. Robarts had all the ordinary curiosity--I
was going to say, of a woman, but I mean to say, of humanity; and she
had, moreover, all the love of a sister. She was both curious and
anxious, and remained sitting where she was, silent, and with her
eyes fixed on her companion. "Did I say so?" Lucy said at last. "No,
Fanny, you have mistaken me--I did not say that. Ah, yes, about the
cow and the dog. All that was true. I was telling you of what his
soft words had been while I was becoming such a fool. Sinc