so
generously I never could know."

"Because we have loved you."

"But when a girl has got a man whom she loves, and has promised to
marry, he must be her best friend of all. Is it not so, Lady Fawn?"
The old woman stooped down and kissed the girl who had got the man.
"It is not ingratitude to you that makes me think most of him; is
it?"

"Certainly not, dear."

"Then I had better go away."

"But where will you go, Lucy?"

"I will consult Mr. Greystock."

"But what can he do, Lucy? It will only be a trouble to him. He can't
find a home for you."

"Perhaps they would have me at the deanery," said Lucy slowly. She
had evidently been thinking much of it all. "And, Lady Fawn, I will
not go down-stairs while Lord Fawn is here; and when he comes,--if he
does come again while I am here,--he shall not be troubled by seeing
me. He may be sure of that. And you may tell him that I don't defend
myself, only I shall always think that he ought not to have said that
Mr. Greystock wasn't a gentleman before me." When Lady Fawn left Lucy
the matter was so far settled that Lucy had neither been asked to
come down to dinner, nor had she been forbidden to seek another home.

CHAPTER XXX

Mr. Greystock's Troubles

Frank Greystock stayed the Sunday in London and went down to
Bobsborough on the Monday. His father and mother and sister all knew
of his engagement to Lucy, and they had heard also that Lady Eustace
was to become Lady Fawn. Of the necklace they had hitherto heard very
little, and of the quarrel between the two lovers they had heard
nothing. There had been many misgivings at the deanery, and some
regrets, about these marriages. Mrs. Greystock, Frank's mother, was,
as we are so wont to say of many women, the best woman in the world.
She was unselfish, affectionate, charitable, and thoroughly feminine.
But she did think that her son Frank, with all his advantages,--good
looks, cleverness, general popularity, and seat in Parliament,--might
just as well marry an heiress as a little girl without twopence in
the world. As for herself, who had been born a Jackson, she could
do with very little; but the Greystocks were all people who wanted
money. For them there was never more than ninepence in a shilling, if
so much. They were a race who could not pay their way with moderate
incomes. Even the dear dean, who really had a conscience about money,
and who hardly ever left Bobsborough, could not be kept quite clear
of d