greater than was usual among her companions, most of whom looked upon
their school education chiefly as a matter of form, which it was
expected of them to go through before entering on the real object of
life, the entrance into "society," with its pleasures and excitements.
That it was intended to be a means of disciplining their minds for
better doing their future duties, enlarging their range of thought,
and opening to them new sources of interest and delight, had never
entered into their heads. Lucy indeed pursued her studies more for the
sake of the pleasure they afforded her at the time than with any
ulterior views, though she did feel the advantages placed in her way
to be a sacred trust, and, like all other privileges, to be accounted
for to Him who had bestowed them.

With her teachers, who found her a pupil after their own heart, she
was a much greater favourite than she was with some of her classmates,
who were so uncongenial, that she could not well enter into, or even
understand, the things which interested them. Nor could she always
refrain from showing her impatience of their frivolities, or her
contempt for the follies which so engrossed their minds; and this did
not, of course, tend to make her popular. This circumstance Lucy did
not care for so much even as she ought; for, though fond of
approbation, she cared only for the approbation of those she esteemed,
unlike her cousin Stella, who liked admiration from any source.

When the bright, balmy days of spring came, bringing with them
thoughts of green fields and budding trees, there sometimes came over
her longings almost irresistible for her old home, so full of rural
sights and sounds, in such contrast to the stiff, straight city
streets and houses, the dust and noise, and the squares planted with
trees, which to her eyes seemed like caged birds, as the only
reminders that there were such things in the world. These longings
usually came to her most strongly in the long spring evenings, in
whose lengthening light she used to rejoice at Ashleigh, as enabling
her to prolong her pleasant country rambles. Now she must either walk
up and down the hard pavements between never-ending rows of houses, or
sit at the window, wistfully watching the sunset light falling golden
on the opposite walls. Now and then she accompanied the others in a
long drive; but the distance which they had to traverse before they
reached anything like the country seemed to her inter