learn something. Lizzie at once acceded, and Frank
went direct to Mr. Camperdown's offices. "If I had lost ten thousand
pounds in that way," said Mrs. Carbuncle, "I think I should have
broken my heart." Lizzie felt that her heart was bursting rather than
being broken, because the ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds was
not really lost.

CHAPTER XLVI

Lucy Morris in Brook Street

Lucy Morris went to Lady Linlithgow early in October, and was still
with Lady Linlithgow when Lizzie Eustace returned to London in
January. During these three months she certainly had not been happy.
In the first place, she had not once seen her lover. This had aroused
no anger or suspicion in her bosom against him, because the old
countess had told her that she would have no lover come to the house,
and that, above all, she would not allow a young man with whom she
herself was connected to come in that guise to her companion. "From
all I hear," said Lady Linlithgow, "it's not at all likely to be a
match;--and at any rate it can't go on here." Lucy thought that she
would be doing no more than standing up properly for her lover by
asserting her conviction that it would be a match;--and she did
assert it bravely; but she made no petition for his presence, and
bore that trouble bravely. In the next place, Frank was not a
satisfactory correspondent. He did write to her occasionally;--and he
wrote also to the old countess immediately on his return to town from
Bobsborough a letter which was intended as an answer to that which
she had written to Mrs. Greystock. What was said in that letter Lucy
never knew;--but she did know that Frank's few letters to herself
were not full and hearty,--were not such thorough-going love-letters
as lovers write to each other when they feel unlimited satisfaction
in the work. She excused him,--telling herself that he was
overworked, that with his double trade of legislator and lawyer he
could hardly be expected to write letters,--that men, in respect of
letter-writing, are not as women are, and the like; but still there
grew at her heart a little weed of care, which from week to week
spread its noxious, heavy-scented leaves, and robbed her of her
joyousness. To be loved by her lover, and to feel that she was
his,--to have a lover of her own to whom she could thoroughly devote
herself,--to be conscious that she was one of those happy women in
the world who find a mate worthy of worship as well as love,--th