e, taking pride in making his coffee for
him, and a hundred little attentions. "Now begin," she would say,
recalling with a child's eager interest and earnest recollection the
point at which he had left off. This was the greater part of Lucy's
education. She travelled with him through very distant regions, and went
through all kinds of adventure.

And in the season they went to London, where she made her appearance in
society, not perhaps with _eclat_, but with a modest composure which
delighted him. She understood then, for the first time, what it was to
be rich, and was amused and pleased--amused above all by the position
which she occupied with the utmost simplicity. People said it would turn
the little creature's head, but it never even disturbed her imagination.
She took it with a calm that was extraordinary. Thus her education
progressed, and Lucy was so fully occupied with it, with learning her
husband and her life and the world, that she had no time to think of the
responsibilities which once had weighed so heavily upon her. When now
and then they occurred to her and she made some passing reference to
them, there were so many other things to do that she forgot
again--forgot everything except to be happy and learn and see, as she
had now so many ways of doing. She forgot herself altogether, and
everything that had been hers, not in excitement, but in the soft
absorbing influence of her new life, which drew her away into endless
novelties and occupations, such as were, indeed, duties and necessities
of her altered sphere.

If this was the case in the first three or four years of her marriage,
when she had only Sir Tom to think of, you may suppose what it was when
the baby came, to add a hundredfold to the interests of her existence.
Everything else in life, it may be believed, dwindled into nothing in
comparison with this boy of boys--this wonderful infant. There had
never been one in the world like him it is unnecessary to say: and
everything was so novel to her, and she felt the importance of being
little Tom's mother so deeply, that her mind was quite carried away from
all other thoughts. She grew almost beautiful in the light of this new
addition to her happiness. And how happy she was! The child grew and
throve. He was a splendid boy. His mother did not sing litanies in his
praise in public, for her good sense never forsook her: but his little
being seemed to fill up her life like a new stream flowing into i