erself to do this; but
she had prayed that the occasion might be slow to come. Nobody but Jock
knew anything about these Churchills, and Jock was going back to school,
and he was young and perhaps he might forget! But here was another who
would not forget. She read all the recommendations of the family and
their excellences with a sort of despair. Money, it was evident, could
not be better bestowed than in this way. There seemed no opening by
which she could escape; no way of thrusting this act away from her. She
felt a panic seize her. How was she to disobey Tom, how to do a thing of
so much importance, contrary to his will, against his advice? The whole
world around her, the solid walls, and the sky that shone in through the
great window, swam in Lucy's eyes. She drew her breath hard like a
hunted creature; there was a singing in her ears, and a dimness in her
sight. Lady Randolph's voice asking with a certain satisfaction, yet
sympathy, "What is the matter? I hope it is not anything very bad,"
seemed to come to her from a distance as from a different world; and
when she added, after a moment, soothingly, "You must not vex yourself
about it, Lucy, if it is just a piece of folly. Boys are constantly in
that way coming to grief:" it was with difficulty that Lucy remembered
to what she could refer. Jock! Ah, if it had been but a boyish folly,
Sir Tom would have been the first to forgive that; he would have opened
his kind heart and taken the offender in, and laughed and persuaded him
out of his folly. He would have been like a father to the boy. To feel
all that, and how good he was; and yet determinedly to contradict his
will and go against him! Oh, how could she do it? and yet what else was
there to do?

"It is not about Jock," she answered with a faint voice.

"I beg your pardon, my dear. I was not aware that you knew Jock's tutor
well enough for general correspondence. These gentlemen seem to make a
great deal of themselves now-a-days, but in my time, Lucy----"

"I do not know him very well, Aunt Randolph. He is only sending me some
information. I wish I might ask you a question," she cried suddenly,
looking into the Dowager's face with earnest eyes. This lady had perhaps
not all the qualities that make a perfect woman, but she had always been
very kind to Lucy. She was not unkind to anybody, although there were
persons, of whom Jock was one, whom she did not like. And in all
circumstances to Lucy, even when there