he papers it should be Sir Thomas Randolph, etc.,
returned as representative of his wife, Lucy, a little woman worth as
much as any county in England."

"O, Sir Tom," Lucy cried.

"Well, so you are, my dear," he said, composedly. "That is a mere matter
of fact, you know, and there can be no question about it at all."

For the truth was that she was so rich as to have been called the
greatest heiress in England in her day.

CHAPTER II.

HIS WIFE.

Young Lady Randolph had herself been much changed by the progress of
these years. Marriage is always the great touchstone of character at
least with women; but in her case the change from a troubled and
premature independence, full of responsibilities and an extremely
difficult and arduous duty, to the protection and calm of early married
life, in which everything was done for her, and all her burdens taken
from her shoulders, rather arrested than aided in the development of her
character. She had lived six months with the Dowager Lady Randolph after
her father's death; but those six months had been all she knew of the
larger existence of the wealthy and great. All she knew--and even in
that short period she had learned less than she might have been expected
to learn; for Lucy had not been introduced into society, partly on
account of her very youthful age, and partly because she was still in
mourning, so that her acquaintance with life on the higher line
consisted merely in a knowledge of certain simple luxuries, of larger
rooms and prettier furniture, and more careful service than in her
natural condition. And by birth she belonged to the class of small
townsfolk who are nobody, and whose gentility is more appalling than
their homeliness. So that when she came to be Sir Thomas Randolph's wife
and a great lady, not merely the ward of an important personage, but
herself occupying that position, the change was so wonderful that it
required all Lucy's mental resources to encounter and accustom herself
to it.

Sir Tom was the kindest of middle-aged husbands. If he did not adore his
young wife with the fervour of passion, he had a sincere affection for
her, and the warmest desire to make her happy. She had done a great deal
for him, she had changed his position unspeakably, and he was fully
determined that no lady in England should have more observance, more
honour and luxury, and what was better, more happiness, than the little
girl who had made a man of him. Ther