s hopes. He could restore the fallen
fortunes of their race, and her part must be to train him to the
glorious task. He was growing up, and she made up her mind to keep from
him all knowledge of her father's weakness. To George he must seem to
the last an honest gentleman.

Lucy transferred to her brother all the love which she had lavished on
her father. She watched his growth fondly, interesting herself in his
affairs, and seeking to be to him not only a sister, but the mother he
had lost and the father who was unworthy. When he was of a fit age she
saw that he was sent to Winchester. She followed his career with passion
and entered eagerly into all his interests.

But if Lucy had lost her old love for her father, its place had been
taken by a pitying tenderness; and she did all she could to conceal from
him the change in her feelings. It was easy when she was with him, for
then it was impossible to resist his charm; and it was only afterwards,
when he was no longer there to explain things away, that she could not
crush the horror and resentment with which she regarded him. But of this
no one knew anything; and she set herself deliberately not only to make
such headway as she could in the tangle of their circumstances, but to
conceal from everyone the actual state of things.

For presently Fred Allerton seemed no longer to have an inexhaustible
supply of ready money, and Lucy had to resort to a very careful economy.
She reduced expenses in every way she could, and when left alone in the
house, lived with the utmost frugality. She hated to ask her father for
money, and since often he did not pay the allowance that was due to her,
she was obliged to exercise a good deal of self-denial. As soon as she
was old enough, Lucy had taken the household affairs into her own hands
and had learned to conduct them in such a way as to hide from the world
how difficult it was to make both ends meet. Now, feeling that things
were approaching a crisis, she sold the horses and dismissed most of the
servants. A great fear seized her that it would be impossible to keep
Hamlyn's Purlieu, and she was stricken with panic. She was willing to
make every sacrifice but that, and if she were only allowed to remain
there, did not care how penuriously she lived.

But the struggle was growing harder. None knew what she had endured in
her endeavour to keep their heads above water. And she had borne
everything with perfect cheerfulness. Though she