his--this and no
more? She almost thought so as she looked up into his kind face. Only
this! How glad it would have made her three weeks ago to have his
sanction for the thing she was so reluctant to attempt, which it was so
much her duty to do, which Jock urged with so much pertinacity, and
which her father from his grave enjoined. If it affected her but dully
now, whose was the fault? Not Tom's, who was so generously ready to
yield to her, although he disapproved. When he retired behind his
newspaper once more with a kind smile at her, to end the matter, Lucy
sat quite still in a curious stunned confusion trying to account for it
all to herself. There could be no doubt, she thought, that it was she
who was in the wrong. She it was who had created the embarrassment
altogether. He was not even aware of any other cause. It had never
occurred to his greater mind that she could be so petty as to fret under
the interruption which their visitors had made in her life. He had
thought that the other matter was the cause of her dullness and silence,
and generously had put an end to it, not by requiring any sacrifice from
her, but by making one in his own person. She sat silent trying to
realise all this, but unable to get quite free from the confusion and
dimness that had invaded her soul.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE ORACLE SPEAKS.

Lucy went up to the nursery when breakfast was over. It was her habit to
go and take counsel of little Tom when her heart was troubled or heavy.
He was now eighteen months old, an age at which you will say the
judicial faculties are small; but a young mother has superstitions, and
there are many dilemmas in life in which it will do a woman, though the
male critic may laugh, great good to go and confide it all to her baby,
and hold that little bundle of white against her heart to conquer the
pain of it. When little Tom was lively and well, when he put his arms
about her neck and dabbed his velvety mouth against her cheek, Lucy felt
that she was approved of and her heart rose. When he was cross and cried
and pushed her away from him, as sometimes happened, she ceased to be
sure of anything, and felt dissatisfied with herself and all the world.
It was with a great longing to consult this baby oracle and see what
heaven might have to say to her through his means, that she ran
upstairs, neglecting even Mrs. Freshwater, who advanced ceremoniously
from her own retirement with her bill of fare in her hand