Lucy, in her grey travelling cloak, and fresh straw bonnet, came staggering in under a load: a flower-pot, with a great plant in bloom. She looked well. In moments of excitement, there was something of her mother's loveliness in her face; in the lustre of the soft and sweet dark eyes, in the rose bloom of the delicate cheeks, and at those times she was less like Mildred. Lucy put her load on the table, and turned to offer her hand to Mrs. Arkell. Mrs. Arkell touched the tips of the fingers, but Mr. Arkell took her in his arms and kissed her twice; and then recollected himself and fell into proper repentance.
"I ought not to have done it, Lucy; I forgot myself. But, my dear, in the joy of seeing you, and seeing you so pretty, I quite lost sight of precaution. I am shivering with cold and illness, Lucy, and may be going to have I don't know what."
Lucy laughed. She was not afraid, and said so.
"Mamma made me bring this down at once for your conservatory," she said, addressing Mrs. Arkell. "It is a wax plant, and a very beautiful one. The last time we were here, you were regretting you had not a nice one, and when mamma saw this, she thought of you. She sends her very kind regards, Mrs. Arkell, and hopes you will accept it. And now that's my message, and there's my load, and I have delivered both," concluded Lucy, merrily.
In the face of the present—and it was really a beautiful one of its nature—Mrs. Arkell could not maintain her utter ungraciousness. She unbent a very little: unwillingly thanked Lucy for the plant, and inquired how Mrs. Peter Arkell was.
"I think we had better send our girls to the sea-side, if they could come back improved as Lucy has," remarked Mr. Arkell; and the remark aggravated his wife. "Are those roses on your cheeks real, Lucy, or have you learnt the use of that fashionable cosmetic, rose-powder?"
"They are quite real," answered Lucy, the cheeks blushing their own testimony to the answer. "It has done us all so much good! Mr. Prattleton said he should not have known mamma, had he met her in a strange place, she is looking so different. But I am warm just now. It was coming through the streets with that: everybody stared at me."
"Could not Travice have brought it?" asked Mr. Arkell.
"He did offer; but mamma said I should bring it more carefully than he, and she sent me off with it at once. She had been taking care of it herself all the way."
"Where is Travice?" inquired Mrs. Arkell, the sharp tone perceptible in her voice again, more especially to Mr. Arkell's ears.