ppy when he married." Though this was rather a sad fact, Miss
Wodehouse announced it not without a certain gentle satisfaction.
"And, Lucy dear, it is our duty to put aside our own things; they were
all presents, you know," she said, standing up on the chair again to
reach down the St Agnes, which, ever since Lucy had been confirmed,
had hung opposite to her on the wall.

"Oh, don't, don't!" cried Lucy. In that little bit of time, not more
than five minutes as it appeared, the familiar room, which had just
heard the romance of her youth, had come to have a dismantled and
desolate look. The agent of this destruction, who saw in her mind's
eye a new scene, altogether surpassing the old, looked complacently
upon her work, and piled the abstracted articles on the top of each
other, with a pleasant sense of property.

"And your little chair and work-table are yours," said Miss Wodehouse;
"they were always considered yours. You worked the chair yourself,
though perhaps Miss Gibbons helped you a little; and the table you
know, was sent home the day you were eighteen. It was--a present, you
remember. Don't cry, my darling, don't cry; oh, I am sure I did not
mean anything!" cried Miss Wodehouse, putting down the St Agnes and
flying to her sister, about whom she threw her arms. "My hands are all
dusty, dear," said the repentant woman; "but you know, Lucy, we must
look it in the face, for it is not our drawing-room now. Tom may come
in any day and say--oh, dear, dear, here is some one coming
up-stairs!"

Lucy extricated herself from her sister's arms when she heard
footsteps outside. "If it is anybody who has a right to come, I
suppose we are able to receive them," she said, and sat erect over her
needlework, with a changed countenance, not condescending so much as
to look towards the door.

"But what if it should be Tom? Oh, Lucy dear, don't be uncivil to
him," said the elder sister. Miss Wodehouse even made a furtive
attempt to replace the things, in which she was indignantly stopped by
Lucy. "But, my dear, perhaps it is Tom," said the alarmed woman, and
sank trembling into a chair against the St Agnes, which had just been
deposited there.

"It does not matter who it is," said Lucy, with dignity. For her own
part, she felt too much aggrieved to mention his name--aggrieved by
her own ignorance, by the deception that had been practised upon her,
by the character of the man whom she was obliged to call her brother,
and chief