he time that he produced out of his pocket-book the
little photograph of the new rectory, which he had had made for her by
a rural artist, Miss Wodehouse had emerged out of her handkerchief,
and was perhaps in her heart as happy in a quiet way as she had ever
been in her life. She who had never been good for much, was now, in
the time of their need, endowed with a home which she could offer
Lucy. It was she, the helpless one of the family, who was to be her
young sister's deliverer. Let it be forgiven to her if, in the tumult
of the moment, this was the thought that came first.

When Miss Wodehouse went up-stairs after this agitating but
satisfactory interview, she found Lucy engaged in putting together
some books and personal trifles of her own which were scattered about
the little sitting-room. She had been reading 'In Memoriam' until it
vexed her to feel how inevitably good sense came in and interfered
with the enthusiasm of her grief, making her sensible that to apply to
her fond old father all the lofty lauds which were appropriate to the
poet's hero would be folly indeed. He had been a good tender father to
her, but he was not "the sweetest soul that ever looked with human
eyes;" and Lucy could not but stop in her reading with a kind of pang
and self-reproach as this consciousness came upon her. Miss Wodehouse
looked rather aghast when she found her sister thus occupied. "Did you
think of accepting Miss Wentworth's invitation, after all?" said Miss
Wodehouse; "but, dear, I am afraid it would be awkward; and oh, Lucy,
my darling, I have so many things to tell you," said the anxious
sister, who was shy of communicating her own particular news. Before
many minutes had passed, Lucy had thrown aside all the books, and was
sitting by her sister's side in half-pleased, disconcerted amazement
to hear her story. Only half-pleased--for Lucy, like most other girls
of her age, thought love and marriage were things which belonged only
to her own level of existence, and was a little vexed and disappointed
to find that her elder sister could condescend to such youthful
matters. On the whole, she rather blushed for Mary, and felt sadly as
if she had come down from an imaginary pedestal. And then Mr Proctor,
so old and so ordinary, whom it was impossible to think of as a
bridegroom, and still less as a brother. "I shall get used to it
presently," said Lucy, with a burning flush on her cheek, and a half
feeling that she had reason