t he had gained a sister by it: at which
Ripton ventured to wish aloud Miss Desborough would only think so, and
a faint smile twitched poor Lucy's lips to please him. She hardly had
strength to reach her cage. She had none to eat of Mrs. Berry's nice
little dinner. To be alone, that she might cry and ease her heart of
its accusing weight of tears, was all she prayed for. Kind Mrs. Berry,
slipping into her bedroom to take off her things, found the fair body in
a fevered shudder, and finished by undressing her completely and putting
her to bed.

"Just an hour's sleep, or so," the mellifluous woman explained the case
to the two anxious gentlemen. "A quiet sleep and a cup of warm tea goes
for more than twenty doctors, it do--when there's the flutters," she
pursued. "I know it by myself. And a good cry beforehand's better than
the best of medicine."

She nursed them into a make-believe of eating, and retired to her softer
charge and sweeter babe, reflecting, "Lord! Lord! the three of 'em don't
make fifty! I'm as old as two and a half of 'em, to say the least." Mrs.
Berry used her apron, and by virtue of their tender years took them all
three into her heart.

Left alone, neither of the young men could swallow a morsel.

"Did you see the change come over her?" Richard whispered.

Ripton fiercely accused his prodigious stupidity.

The lover flung down his knife and fork: "What could I do? If I had said
nothing, we should have been suspected. I was obliged to speak. And she
hates a lie! See! it has struck her down. God forgive me!"

Ripton affected a serene mind: "It was a fright, Richard," he said.
"That's what Mrs. Berry means by flutters. Those old women talk in that
way. You heard what she said. And these old women know. I'll tell you
what it is. It's this, Richard!--it's because you've got a fool for your
friend!"

"She regrets it," muttered the lover. "Good God! I think she fears me."
He dropped his face in his hands.

Ripton went to the window, repeating energetically for his comfort:
"It's because you've got a fool for your friend!"

Sombre grew the street they had last night aroused. The sun was buried
alive in cloud. Ripton saw himself no more in the opposite window. He
watched the deplorable objects passing on the pavement. His aristocratic
visions had gone like his breakfast. Beauty had been struck down by his
egregious folly, and there he stood--a wretch!

Richard came to him: "Don't mumble on like that