d to myself, I am poor, I cannot give her all the
advantages; and they are rich; it is nothing to them--I will stay, I
will continue, though they do not want me, not for my sake, for the sake
of Bice. They will not be sorry afterwards to have made the fortune of
Bice. Listen, dear one; hear me out. I had the intention of forcing
myself upon you--oh no! the words are not too strong--in London, always
for Bice's sake, for she has no one but me; and if her career is
stopped---- I am not a woman," said the Contessa, with dignity, "who am
used to find myself _de trop_. I have been in my life courted, I may say
it, rather than disagreeable; yet this I was willing to bear--and impose
myself upon you for Bice's sake----"

Lucy listened to this moving address with many differing emotions. It
gave her a pang to think that her hopes of having her house to herself
were thus permanently threatened. But at the same time her heart
swelled, and all her generous feelings were stirred. Was she indeed so
poor a creature as to grudge to two lonely women the shelter and
advantage of her wealth and position? If she did this, what did it
matter if she gave money away? This would indeed be keeping to the
letter of her father's will, and abjuring its meaning. She could not
resist the pathos, the dignity, the sweetness of the Contessa's appeal,
which was not for herself but for Bice, for the girl who was so good to
baby, and whom that little oracle had bound her to with links of
gratitude and tenderness. "Oh," Lucy said to herself, "if I should ever
have to appeal to any one for kindness to him!" And Bice was the
Contessa's child--the child of her heart, at least--the voluntary charge
which she had taken upon her, and to which she was devoting herself. Was
it possible that only because she wanted to have her husband to herself
in the evenings, and objected to any interruption of their privacy, a
woman should be made to suffer who was a good woman, and to whom Lucy
could be of use? No, no, she cried within herself, the tears coming to
her eyes; and yet there was a very real pang behind.

"But reassure yourself, dear child," said the Contessa, "for now that I
see what you are doing for others, I cannot be so selfish. No; I cannot
do it any longer. In England you do not love society; you love your home
unbroken; you do not like strangers. No, my Lucy, I will learn a lesson
from your goodness. I too will sacrifice--oh, if it was only myself and
not