hed, and
shook her head, she added--'I meant to tell you that long ago--from the
time I had the Holt--I resolved that what remained of my income after the
duties of my property were fulfilled, should make a fund for you and
Owen. It is not much, but I think you would like to have the option of
anticipating a part, in case it should be possible to rescue that
picture.'

'Dear, dear Honor,' exclaimed Cilla; 'how very kindly you are doing it!
Little did I think that Charles's heartlessness would have brought me so
much joy and kindness.'

'Then you would like it to be done,' said Honor, delighted to find that
she had been able so to administer a benefit as to excite neither offence
nor resignation. 'We will take care that the purchaser learns the
circumstances, and he can hardly help letting you have it at a fair
valuation.'

'Thanks, thanks, dear Honor,' repeated Lucy; 'and now for _my_
explanation. Mr. Prendergast has asked me to marry him.'

Had it been herself, Honor could not have been more astounded.

'My child! impossible! Why, he might be your father! Is it that you
want a home, Lucy? Can you not stay with me?'

'I can and I will for the present, Sweetest Honey,' said Cilly,
caressingly drawing her arm round her. 'I want to have been good and
happy with you; but indeed, indeed I can't help his being more to me!'

'He is a very excellent man,' began bewildered Honor; 'but I cannot
understand--'

'His oddity? That's the very thing which makes him my own, and nobody
else's, Mr. Pendy! Listen, Honor. Sit down, you don't half know him,
nor did I know my own heart till now. He came to us, you know, when my
father's health began to break after my mother's death. He was quite
young, only a deacon; he lived in our house, and he was, with all his
dear clumsiness, a daughter to my father, a nurse to us. I could tell
you of such beautiful awkward tendernesses! How he used to help me with
my sums--and tie Owen's shoes, and mince his dinner for him--and spare my
father all that was possible! I am sure you know how we grieved after
him.'

'Yes, but--'

'And now I know that it was _he_ that I cared for at Wrapworth. With him
I never was wild and naughty as I was with others, though I did not
know--oh! Honor, if I had but known--that he always cared for the horrid
little thing I was, I could not have gone on so; but he was too good and
wise, even while he _did_ love me, to think of _this_, till I had be