“Come over to the light, child, and let me see you well. I 'm wildly jealous of you, I must own, but I 'll try to be fair and judge you honestly. My husband says you are the loveliest creature he ever saw; and I declare I 'm afraid he spoke truly. What have you done with your eyes? they are far darker than they used to be; and this hair,—you need not tell me it's all your own, child. Gold could not buy it. Yes, Jane, you are right, she is perfectly beautiful.”
“Oh, do not turn my head with vanity,” said Lucy, blushing.
“I wish I could,—I wish I could do anything to lessen any of your fascinations. Do you know it's very hard—very hard indeed—to forgive any one being so beautiful, and hardest of all for me to do so?”
“Why for you?” said Lucy, anxiously.
“I'll tell you another time,” said she, in a half-whisper, and with a significant glance at her maid, who, with the officiousness of her order, was taking far more than ordinary trouble to put things to rights. “There, Jane,” said her mistress, at last, “all that opening and shutting of drawers is driving me distracted; leave everything as it is, and let us have quiet. Go and fetch me a cup of chocolate.”
“Nothing else, ma'am?”
“Nothing; and ask if there are any letters for me. It's a dreadful house, Lucy, for sending one's letters astray. The Chief used to have scores of little scented notes sent up to him that were meant for me, and I used to get masses of formal-looking documents that should have gone to him; but everything is irregular here. There was no master, and, worse, no mistress; but I 'll hope, as they tell me here, that there will soon be one.”
“I don't know,—I have not heard.”
“What a diplomatic damsel it is! Why, child, can't you be frank, and say if you are coming back to live here?”
“I never suspected that I was in question at all; if I had, I 'd have told you, as I tell you now, there is not the most remote probability of such an event. We are going back to live at the Nest. Sir Brook has bought it, and made it over to papa or myself,—I don't know which, but it means the same in the sense I care for, that we are to be together again.”