"Hewitt, I shall go and see poor Miss Sumnor. I should like to take her a little basket of strawberries and a few of Maclean's best flowers. Will you see to it for me, and put them in the fly?"
She tan up stairs. She put off her robes alone, and came down in one of her cool muslins and a straw bonnet as plain as Mrs. Grey's. Hewitt had placed the basket of strawberries--some of the large pine-apple beauties that the Court was famous for--in the fly, a sheet of tissue paper upon them, and some lovely hothouse flowers on the paper. Lucy got in; told the footman she should not require his attendance; and was driven away to the vicarage.
"Am I to wait for you, my lady?" asked the driver, as he set her down with her basket of fruit and flowers.
"No, thank you; I shall walk home."
Margaret was lying alone as usual, her face this afternoon a sad one. Lucy presented her little offering; and when the poor lonely invalid saw the tempting, luscious fruit, smelt the sweet perfume of the gorgeous flowers, the tears came into her eyes.
"You have brought all this to brighten me, Lucy. How good you are! I have had something to try me to-day, and was in one of my saddest moods."
The tears and the admission tried Lucy sorely. Just a moment she struggled with herself for composure, and then gave way. Bursting into a flood of grief, the knelt down and hid her face on Margaret's bosom.
"Oh Margaret, Margaret, you cannot have as much to try you as I have!" she cried out in her pain. "My life is one long path of sorrow; my heart is breaking. Can't you say a word to comfort me?"
Margaret Sumnor, forgetting as by magic all sense of her own trouble, tried to comfort her. She touched her with her gently caressing hand; she whispered soothing words, as one whispers to a child in sorrow: and Lucy's sobs exhausted themselves.
"My dear Lucy, before I attempt to say anything, I must ask you a question. Can you tell me the nature of your sorrow?"