'Am I really to keep it like this?' cried Lucy, looking at herself in the glass.
'But of course you are!' and Mrs. Burgoyne instinctively held the girl's arms, lest any violence should be offered to her handiwork—'And you must put on your old white frock—not the check—the nice soft one that's been washed, with the pink sash—Goodness, how the time goes! Marie, run and tell Miss Manisty not to wait for me—I'll follow her to the village.'
The maid went. Lucy looked down upon her tyrant—
You are very kind to me'—she said with a lip that trembled slightly. Her blue eyes under the black brows showed a feeling that she did not know how to express. The subdued responsiveness, indeed, of Lucy's face was like that of Wordsworth's Highland girl struggling with English. You felt her 'beating up against the wind,'—in the current, yet resisting it. Or to take another comparison, her nature seemed to be at once stiff and rich—like some heavy church stuff, shot with gold.
'Oh! these things are my snare,' said Eleanor, laughing—'If I have any gift, it is for chiffons.'
'Any gift!' said Lucy wondering—'when you do so much for Mr. Manisty?'
Mrs. Burgoyne shrugged her shoulders.
'Ah! well—he wanted a secretary—and I happened to get the place,' she said, in a more constrained voice.
'Miss Manisty told me how you helped him in the winter. And she and Mr.
Brooklyn—have—told me—other things—' said Lucy. She paused, colouring
deeply. But her eyes travelled timidly to the photographs on Mrs.
Burgoyne's table.
Eleanor understood.