But she had not long to indulge her disappointment. Before many minutes had passed, a knock at the door summoned her to take part in the packing up which was going on around.
She was young, and in spite of herself almost, the preparations did take off her thoughts, and she found herself in the whirl of the excitement such a change involved.
But deep down in her heart the same discontented and bitter chord kept on vibrating, and what should have been music was turned to discord. Two or three years ago Lucia had come to feel her need of a Saviour, and had gone to Him to be pardoned and saved; and ever since she had gone on in her old life with very little difference either to herself or others. She rose each day, read a little of her Bible, prayed to have her sins forgiven and to be made good, and then she went on her daily round of duties and pleasures, without much further thought. Glad that she was safe, even thanking God that she was safe, but content to be kind and loving and unselfish to those who loved her so devotedly, and nothing more.
"I think Lucia hardly has a fault," her mother wrote to her aunt, and perhaps Lucia almost thought the same herself.
Then came the happy visit, her renewed acquaintance with her cousins and with their friends the Cransworths, and Lucia floated along the stream of pleasure for one delicious month, and woke up after a nightmare of partings and journeys and packings and partings again, to find herself looking out of a little parlour window on a green lawn, and a pond covered with waterlilies; while beyond was a hill covered with tender green trees and crowned with pines, whose straight delicate branches were set off by the sunset sky behind.
If her mother and father had been there she would have said that the view was almost too exquisite; but to-night, with the knowledge of her responsibilities, and with the voices of her five little step-brothers and sisters behind her back, the scene only gave her the heartache. And she went to rest in the little countrified bedroom, with the cloud still unlifted from her spirit—only longing that the three months should be over, and she should be able to go back to her London home.
The next morning, however, things began to look decidedly brighter.
The children no longer seemed so tiresome, and as Lucia sat at the breakfast table watching their smiling faces, she reproached herself that she had thought them last night the most disagreeable little creatures in existence.
"Lucia," said Barbara coaxingly, with a certain wistfulness in her voice, that Lucia detected in a moment, "could you come out with us this morning and explore the wood?"
"I do not think so—I have to unpack; but why do you not be satisfied to-day with going up this field and settling yourselves where nurse and I can see you?"