I thought naturally of baby," said the young
mother. Then she made a pause and added softly, "I hope--they--are
always kind to her."

There was a little silence. Sir Tom was behind his newspaper. He
listened, but he did not say anything, and Jock was not aware that he
was listening.

"Oh, I don't think she minds," said Jock. "She is rather jolly when you
come to know her. I say, Lucy, it will be awfully dull for her, you
know, when----"

"When what, Jock?"

"When I am gone," the boy intended to have said, but some gleam of
consciousness came over him that made him pause. He did not say this,
but grew a little red in the effort to think of something else that he
could say.

"Well, I mean here," he said, "for she hasn't been used to it. She has
been in places where there was always music playing and that sort of
thing. She never was in the country. There's plenty of books, to be
sure; but she's not very fond of reading. Few people, are, I think.
_You_ never open a book----"

"Oh yes, Jock! I read the books from Mudie's," Lucy said, with some
spirit, "and I always send them upstairs."

Jock had it on his lips to say something derogatory of the books from
Mudie's; but he checked himself, for he remembered to have seen MTutor
with one of those frivolous volumes, and he refrained from snubbing
Lucy. "I believe she can't read," he said. "She can do nothing but laugh
at one. And she thinks she's pretty," he added, with a little laugh yet
sense of unfaithfulness to the trust reposed in him, which once more
covered his face with crimson.

Lucy laughed too, with hesitation and doubt. "I cannot see it," she
said, "but that is what Lady Randolph thought. It is strange that she
should talk of such things; but people are very funny who have been
brought up abroad."

"All girls are like that," said Jock, authoritatively. "They think so
much of being pretty. But I tell her it doesn't matter. What difference
could it make? Nobody will suppose it was her fault. She says----"

"Hallo, young man," said Sir Tom. "It is time you went back to school, I
think. What would MTutor say to all these confidences with young
ladies, and knowledge of their ways!"

Jock gave his brother-in-law a look, in which defiant virtue struggled
with a certain consciousness; but he scorned to make any reply.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BREAKFAST TABLE.

Lucy found her life much changed when Jock had gone, and she was left
alone to face the cha