“Yaas!”
“But not a soul must see it, or know where you are gone.”
“All raight, Miss Fountain. Don't you be fraightened; I'm close as the grave, and I'll be there in less than haelf an hour.”
“Yes; but don't hurt my dear pony either; don't beat him; and, above all, don't come back without an answer.”
“I'll bring you an answer in an hour and twenty minutes.” The captain looked at his watch, and went out with a smartness that contrasted happily with his slowness of speech.
Lucy went back to her own room and locked herself in, and with trembling hands began to pack up her jewels and some of her clothes. But when it came to this, wounded pride was sorely taxed by a host of reminiscences and tender regrets, and every now and then the tears suddenly gushed and fell upon her poor hands as she put things out, or patted them flat, to wander on the world.
While she is thus sorrowfully employed, let me try and give an outline of the feelings that had now for some time been secretly growing in her, since without their co-operation she would never have been driven to the strange step she now meditated.
Lucy was a very unselfish and very intelligent girl. The first trait had long blinded her to something; the second had lately helped to open her eyes.
If ever you find a person quick to discover selfishness in others, be sure that person is selfish; for it is only the selfish who come into habitual collision with selfishness, and feel how sharp-pointed a thing it is. When Unselfish meets Selfish, each acts after his kind; Unselfish gives way, Selfish holds his course, and so neither is thwarted, and neither finds out the other's character.
Lucy, then, of herself, would never have discovered her relatives' egotism. But they helped her, and she was too bright not to see anything that was properly pointed out to her.