would fight her own fight bravely within her own bosom, and conquer
her enemy altogether. She would either preach, or starve, or weary
her love into subjection, and no one should be a bit the wiser. She
would teach herself to shake hands with Lord Lufton without a quiver,
and would be prepared to like his wife amazingly--unless indeed that
wife should be Griselda Grantly. Such were her resolutions; but at
the end of the first week they were broken into shivers and scattered
to the winds. They had been sitting in the house together the whole
of one wet day; and as Mark was to dine in Barchester with the dean,
they had had dinner early, eating with the children almost in their
laps. It is so that ladies do, when their husbands leave them to
themselves. It was getting dusk towards evening, and they were still
sitting in the drawing-room, the children now having retired, when
Mrs. Robarts for the fifth time since her visit to Hogglestock began
to express her wish that she could do some good to the Crawleys,--to
Grace Crawley in particular, who, standing up there at her father's
elbow, learning Greek irregular verbs, had appeared to Mrs. Robarts
to be an especial object of pity.

"I don't know how to set about it," said Mrs. Robarts. Now any
allusion to that visit to Hogglestock always drove Lucy's mind back
to the consideration of the subject which had most occupied it at the
time. She at such moments remembered how she had beaten Puck, and how
in her half-bantering but still too serious manner she had apologized
for doing so, and had explained the reason. And therefore she could
not interest herself about Grace Crawley as vividly as she should
have done. "No; one never does," she said.

"I was thinking about it all that day as I drove home," said Fanny.
"The difficulty is this: What can we do with her?"

"Exactly," said Lucy, remembering the very point of the road at which
she had declared that she did like Lord Lufton very much.

"If we could have her here for a month or so and then send her to
school;--but I know Mr. Crawley would not allow us to pay for her
schooling."

"I don't think he would," said Lucy, with her thoughts far removed
from Mr. Crawley and his daughter Grace.

"And then we should not know what to do with her; should we?"

"No; you would not."

"It would never do to have the poor girl about the house here with no
one to teach her anything. Mark would not teach her Greek verbs, you
know."

"I