like her. She began also to understand what it was that had brought
about her son's love, and to feel that but for certain unfortunate
concomitant circumstances the girl before her might have made
a fitting Lady Lufton. Lucy had grown bigger in her eyes while
sitting there and talking, and had lost much of that missish want
of importance--that lack of social weight--which Lady Lufton in her
own opinion had always imputed to her. A girl that could thus speak
up and explain her own position now, would be able to speak up and
explain her own, and perhaps some other positions at any future time.
But not for all or any of these reasons did Lady Lufton think of
giving way. The power of making or marring this marriage was placed
in her hands, as was very fitting, and that power it behoved her
to use, as best she might use it, to her son's advantage. Much as
she might admire Lucy, she could not sacrifice her son to that
admiration. The unfortunate concomitant circumstances still remained,
and were of sufficient force, as she thought, to make such a marriage
inexpedient. Lucy was the sister of a gentleman who by his peculiar
position as parish clergyman of Framley was unfitted to be the
brother-in-law of the owner of Framley. Nobody liked clergymen better
than Lady Lufton or was more willing to live with them on terms of
affectionate intimacy, but she could not get over the feeling that
the clergyman of her own parish,--or of her son's,--was a part of
her own establishment, of her own appanage,--or of his,--and that
it could not be well that Lord Lufton should marry among his own
dependants. Lady Lufton would not have used the word, but she did
think it. And then, too, Lucy's education had been so deficient. She
had had no one about her in early life accustomed to the ways of,--of
what shall I say without making Lady Lufton appear more worldly than
she was? Lucy's wants in this respect, not to be defined in words,
had been exemplified by the very way in which she had just now stated
her case. She had shown talent, good temper, and sound judgement; but
there had been no quiet, no repose about her. The species of power
in young ladies which Lady Lufton most admired was the _vis inertiae_
belonging to beautiful and dignified reticence; of this poor Lucy had
none. Then, too, she had no fortune, which, though a minor evil, was
an evil; and she had no birth, in the high-life sense of the word,
which was a greater evil. And then, though