was no immediate prospect that
the Randolph family would be any the better for her, she had always been
kind.

"As many as you like, my love," she answered, cordially.

"Yes," said Lucy; "but, dear Aunt Randolph, what I want is that you
should let me ask, without asking anything in return. I want to know
what you think, but I don't want to explain----"

"It is a strange condition," said Lady Randolph; but then she thought in
her superior experience that she was very sure to find out what this
simple girl meant without explanations. "But I am not inquisitive," she
added, with a smile, "and I am quite willing, dear, to tell you anything
I know----"

"It is this," said Lucy, leaning forward in her great earnestness; "do
you think a woman is ever justified in doing anything which her husband
disapproves?"

"Lucy!" cried Lady Randolph, in great dismay, "when her husband is my
Tom, and the thing she wants to do is connected with Jock's tutor----"

Lucy's gaze of astonishment, and her wondering repetition of the words,
"connected with Jock's tutor!" brought Lady Randolph to herself. In
society, such a suspicion being fostered by all the gossips, comes
naturally; but though she was a society-woman, and had not much faith in
holy ignorance, she paused here, horrified by her own suggestion, and
blushed at herself.

"No, no," she said, "that was not what I meant; but perhaps I could not
quite advise, Lucy, where I am so closely concerned."

At which Lucy looked at her somewhat wistfully. "I thought you would
perhaps remember," she said, "when you were like me, Aunt Randolph, and
perhaps did not know so well as you know now----"

This touched the elder lady's heart. "Lucy," she said, "my dear, if you
were not as innocent as I know you are, you would not ask your husband's
nearest relation such a question. But I will answer you as one woman to
another, and let Tom take care of himself. I never was one that was very
strong upon a husband's rights. I always thought that to obey meant
something different from the common meaning of the word. A child must
obey; but even a grown-up child's obedience is very different from what
is natural and proper in youth; and a full-grown woman, you know, never
could be supposed to obey like a child. No wise man, for that matter,
would ever ask it or think of it."

This did not give Lucy any help. She was very willing, for her part, to
accept his light yoke without any restriction, except i