orce of influence upon each, and
Honor assured Phoebe that all would come right. 'Let her only come home
and be good, and you will see, Phoebe! She will not be the worse for an
alarm, nor even for waiting till after his two years at St. Wulstan's.'

The reception of the travellers at Castle Blanch was certainly not
mortifying by creating any excitement. Charles Charteris said his worst
in the words, 'One week!' and his wife was glad to have some one to write
her notes.

This indifference fretted Lucy. She found herself loathing the perfumy
rooms, the sleepy voice, and hardly able to sit still in her restless
impatience of Lolly's platitudes and Charles's _insouciance_, while Rashe
could never be liked again. Even a lecture from Honor Charlecote would
have been infinitely preferable, and one grim look of Robert's would be
bliss!

No one knew whether Miss Charlecote were still in town, nor whether
Augusta Fulmort were to be married in England or abroad; and as to Miss
Murrell, Lolly languidly wondered what it was that she had heard.

Hungering for some one whom she could trust, Lucilla took an early
breakfast in her own room, and walked to Wrapworth, hoping to catch the
curate lingering over his coffee and letters. From a distance, however,
she espied his form disappearing in the school-porch, and approaching,
heard his voice reading prayers, and the children's chanted response.
Coming to the oriel, she looked in. There were the rows of shiny heads,
fair, brown, and black; there were the long sable back and chopped-hay
locks of the curate; but where a queen-like figure had of old been wont
to preside, she beheld a tallow face, with sandy hair under the most
precise of net caps, and a straight thread-paper shape in scanty gray
stuff and white apron.

Dizzy with wrathful consternation, Cilla threw herself on one of the
seats of the porch, shaking her foot, and biting her lip, frantic to know
the truth, yet too much incensed to enter, even when the hum of united
voices ceased, the rushing sound of rising was over, and measured
footsteps pattered to the classes, where the manly interrogations sounded
alternately with the shrill little answers.

Clump, clump, came the heavy feet of a laggard, her head bent over her
book, her thick lips vainly conning the unlearned task, unaware of the
presence of the young lady, till Lucilla touched her, saying, 'What,
Martha, a ten o'clock scholar?'

She gave a little cry, open