such a man, with a whole family growing up, all the better for it, and a
son on the foundation! And then she remembered that Jock had entreated
her to do nothing till he came. Thus the time went on, and her
passionate resolution, her sense that heaven itself was calling upon
her, menacing her with judgment even, seemed to come to nothing--not out
of forgetfulness or sloth, or want of will--but because she saw no way
open before her, and could not tell what to do. And after that miserable
night when Ellen Bailey's baby died, and death seemed to enter in, as
novel and terrible as if he had never been known before, for the first
time into Lucy's Paradise, she had never said anything to Sir Tom. Day
after day she had meant to do it, to throw herself upon his guidance, to
appeal to him to help her; but day after day she had put it off,
shrinking from the possible contest of which some instinct warned her.
She knew, without knowing how, that in this he would not stand by her.
Impossible to have been kinder in that crisis, more tender, more
indulgent, even more understanding than her husband was; but she felt
instinctively the limits of his sympathy. He would not go that length.
When she got to that point he would change. But she could not have him
change; she could not anticipate the idea of a cloud upon his face, or
any shadow between them. And then Lucy made up her mind that she would
wait for Jock, and that he and she together, when there were two to talk
it over, would make out a way.

All was going on well again, the grass above little Willie's grave was
green, his mother consoled and smiling as before, and at the Hall the
idea of the Christmas party had been resumed, and the invitations,
indeed, were sent off, when one morning the visitor whom Lucy had
anticipated with such dread came out of the village, where infantile
diseases always lingered, and entered the carefully-kept nursery. Little
Tom awoke crying and fretful, hot with fever, his poor little eyes heavy
with acrid tears. His mother had not been among the huts where poor men
lie for nought, and she saw at a glance what it was. Well! not anything
so very dreadful--measles, which almost all children have. There was no
reason in the world why she should be alarmed. She acknowledged as much,
with a tremor that went to her heart. There were no bad symptoms. The
baby was no more ill than it was necessary he should be. "He was having
them beautiful," the nurse said, an