The word was spoken in a painful whisper, and the sensitive complexion grew carmine with the sense of shame. It is ever so. Where any defect of person exists, none can feel it as does its possessor; it is to the mind one ever-present agony of humiliation. Lucy Cheveley's spine was not straight; of fragile make and constitution, she had "grown aside," as the familiar saying runs; but at this early period of her life it was not so apparent to a beholder (unless the defect was known and searched for) as it afterwards became.
"You are not very much so, Lucy," was Mrs. St. John's answer. "And your face compensates for it."
Lucy shook her head. "You say so from kindness, I am sure. Do you know," she resumed, her voice again becoming almost inaudible, "I once heard Mrs. Dewsbury joking with Sir Edward about me. He was down for a week about a year ago, and she was telling him he ought to get married and settle down to a steady life. He answered that he could get nobody to have him, and Mrs. Dewsbury—of course you know it was only a jesting conversation on both sides—said, 'There's Lucy Cheveley, would she do for you?' 'She,' he exclaimed; 'she's deformed!' Mrs. St. John, will you believe that for a long while after I felt sick at having to go out, or to cross a room?"
"Yes, I can believe it," said Mrs. St. John, sadly, for she was not unacquainted with this sensitive phase in human misfortune. "Well, Lucy, you cannot be convinced, I dare say, that your figure is not unsightly, so we will let that pass. But I do not understand yet, how you came to marry Peter Arkell."
Lucy laughed and blushed.
"Ah! I see; you loved him. And yet, few, save you, would find Peter Arkell so lovable a man."
"If you only knew his worth, Mrs. St. John!"
"I dare say. But as a knight-errant he is not attractive. Of course, the chief consideration now, is—the thing being irrevocably done, and you here—what sort of a home will he be able to keep for you."
"I have no fear on that score; and I am one to be satisfied with so little. Colonel Dewsbury discharged him, but he soon found an evening engagement that is as good. He intends to go to Oxford when he can accomplish it, and afterwards take orders. When he is a clergyman, perhaps my friends, including you, Mrs. St. John, will admit that his wife can then claim to be in the position of a gentlewoman."
"But, meanwhile you must live."