line friendship which is above the lighter loves
of women. How can a boy think of his sister when absorbed in such a
mystery of his own?--even if he considered his sister at all as a person
whom it was needful to think about--which he did not, Lucy being herself
one of the pillars of the earth to his unopened eyes.

All this, however, made no difference in Lucy's determination. She wrote
to Mr. Rushton that very morning, after this revolution in her soul, to
instruct him as to her intentions in respect to Bice, and to her other
trustee in London to request him to see her immediately on her arrival
in Park Lane. Nothing should be changed in that matter, for why, she
said to herself, should Bice suffer because Sir Tom was untrue? It
seemed to her that there was more reason than ever why she should rouse
herself and throw off her inaction. No doubt there were many people whom
she could make, if not happy, yet comfortable. It was comfortable
(everybody said) to have enough of money--to be well off. Lucy had no
experience of what it was to be without it. She thought to herself she
would like to try, to have only what she actually wanted, to cook the
food for her little family, to nurse little Tom all by herself, to live
as the cottagers lived. There was in her mind no repugnance to any of
the details of poverty. Her wealth was an accident; it was the habit of
her race to be poor, and it seemed to Lucy that she would be happier
could she shake off now all those external circumstances which had
grown, like everything else, into falsehoods, giving an appearance of
well-being which did not exist. But other people thought it well to have
money, and it was her duty to give it. A kind of contempt rose within
her for all that withheld her previously. To avoid her duty because it
would displease Sir Tom--what was that but falsehood too? All was
falsehood, only she had never seen it before.

They reached town in the afternoon of a sweet April day, the sky aglow
with a golden sunset, against which the trees in the park stood out with
their half-developed buds: and all the freshness of the spring was in
the long stretches of green, and the softened jubilee of sound to which
somehow, as the air warms towards summer, the voices of the world
outside tune themselves. The Contessa and Bice in great spirits and
happiness, like two children home from school, had left the Randolph
party at the railway, to take possession of the little house in