“I am so glad to see you,” she said with fervor; and Sir Tom came in smiling, with every appearance of being glad to see her too.
“I thought it best not to come too soon,” Sir Thomas said, “or your old lady did not like the looks of me, Miss Lucy. Perhaps, I thought, she might like me even worse than my looks; but this is luck to find you alone.”
“Oh, but I am always alone,” said Lucy, her countenance falling. “This is not like Grosvenor Street, Sir Thomas; most of the time I see nobody at all; and when people come they say that I am changed.”
“Somebody has been vexing you,” said Sir Thomas, with his sympathetic look. “Never you mind, no one who really knows you will think you changed; and I hope you are happy on the whole, among your old friends.”
Lucy shook her head.
“It is not that they are not kind,” she said; “they are all very kind—but they will not permit me to think that other people are kind too; every one bids me to beware of some one else. You laugh, but I could cry; and it makes me that I don’t know what to do.”
“They bid you beware of me? Well, I suppose that was to be expected,” Sir Thomas said, with a laugh.
“Oh, not only of you, but of each other; and Aunt Ford warns me against them all. Well, it is amusing, I suppose,” said Lucy, “but it does not amuse me,” and the tears came into her eyes.
“My dear little girl (I am an uncle, you know), things will mend,” said Sir Tom. “Come, tell me what they say of me. Did they say I was an extravagant fool, and had wasted all my living like a prodigal? Alas! that is true, Lucy. It may be uncharitable to say it, but the ladies are quite right; and if it were not for that excellent plan of the uncle, perhaps, as they tell you, it would be better for you to have nothing to do with me.”
“I do not believe that,” cried Lucy, almost with vehemence. And then she paused and looked at him anxiously, and, with a crimson color gradually coming over her face, asked in a low tone, “Sir Thomas, do not be angry; are you poor?”