"I know that, Lady Fawn."
"When your time here is over, just put up your things and come back to Richmond. You need fear nothing with us. Frederic quite liked your way of parting with him at last, and all that little affair is forgotten. At Fawn Court you'll be safe;—and you shall be happy, too, if we can make you happy. It's the proper place for you."
"Of course you'll come," said Diana Fawn.
"You'll be the worst little thing in the world if you don't," said Lydia. "We don't know what to do without you. Do we, mamma?"
"Lucy will please us all by coming back to her old home," said Lady Fawn. The tears were now streaming down Lucy's face, so that she was hardly able to say a word in answer to all this kindness. And she did not know what word to say. Were she to accept the offer made to her, and acknowledge that she could do nothing better than creep back under her old friend's wing,—would she not thereby be showing that she doubted her lover? And yet she could not go to the dean's house unless the dean and his wife were pleased to take her; and, suspecting as she did, that they would not be pleased, would it become her to throw upon her lover the burthen of finding for her a home with people who did not want her? Had she been welcome at Bobsborough, Mrs. Greystock would surely have so told her before this. "You needn't say a word, my dear," said Lady Fawn. "You'll come, and there's an end of it."
"But you don't want me any more," said Lucy, from amidst her sobs.
"That's just all that you know about it," said Lydia. "We do want you,—more than anything."
"I wonder whether I may come in now," said Lady Linlithgow, entering the room. As it was the countess's own drawing-room, as it was now mid-winter, and as the fire in the dining-room had been allowed, as was usual, to sink almost to two hot coals, the request was not unreasonable. Lady Fawn was profuse in her thanks, and immediately began to account for Lucy's tears, pleading their dear friendship and their long absence, and poor Lucy's emotional state of mind. Then she took her leave, and Lucy, as soon as she had been kissed by her friends outside the drawing-room door, took herself to her bedroom, and finished her tears in the cold.
"Have you heard the news?" said Lady Linlithgow to her companion about a month after this. Lady Linlithgow had been out, and asked the question immediately on her return. Lucy, of course, had heard no news. "Lizzie Eustace has just come back to London, and has had all her jewels stolen on the road."
"The diamonds?" asked Lucy, with amaze.