'But I am not engaged!' said Lucy impatiently.
She was not going to be lectured by Maria. Nobody would ever think of kissing Maria in the lane.
'Then I don't understand it,' Miss Stubbs said stiffly.
'Oh, you poor creature!' Lucy said with a weak attempt at a laugh, and her cheeks scarlet. 'I am only encouraging him for his own good. I have only told him he may work; he is sure to take a high place, but he would not do anything if I did not encourage him. Think: all his life depends upon it. You would do the same if you were in my place.'
Miss Stubbs did not say she wouldn't, but she blushed beneath her freckles, and her eyes softened beneath the red lashes. There were depths in her eyes that Lucy had never seen in them before, and she was looking at Maria sharply—unfathomed depths, for nobody had tested the depths and height of Maria's love. Perhaps a brave man, who does not look on the outward appearance, or who prefers red hair, may some day, and he will have no cause for regret.
'And what will happen when—when the work is done, and he has won the high place?' Maria asked softly.
She was thinking how she would love above all things to fire a man who loved her with ambitions. She would fill him with the noblest ambitions, and when he had climbed the ladder, when he had realized all his dreams, she would not cheat him of his reward.
'And what then?' she repeated, when she found Lucy did not answer.
'Oh, I don't know. I have not made up my mind. Whatever happened, it would be a great thing for him to have done the work—to have taken his degree, that could never be recalled. I am sure I have done right—in—in encouraging him, as you term it.'