ring she nodded assentingly.

"We shall not have much packing to do, Mrs. Berry."

"No, my dear. It's pretty well all done."

"We are going to the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Berry."

"And a very suitable spot ye've chose, my dear!"

"He loves the sea. He wishes to be near it."

"Don't ye cross to-night, if it's anyways rough, my dear. It isn't
advisable." Mrs. Berry sank her voice to say, "Don't ye be soft and give
way to him there, or you'll both be repenting it."

Lucy had only been staving off the unpleasantness she had to speak. She
saw Mrs. Berry's eyes pursuing her ring, and screwed up her courage at
last.

"Mrs. Berry."

"Yes, my dear."

"Mrs. Berry, you shall have another ring."

"Another, my dear?" Berry did not comprehend. "One's quite enough for
the objeck," she remarked.

"I mean," Lucy touched her fourth finger, "I cannot part with this." She
looked straight at Mrs. Berry.

That bewildered creature gazed at her, and at the ring, till she had
thoroughly exhausted the meaning of the words, and then exclaimed,
horror-struck: "Deary me, now! you don't say that? You're to be married
again in your own religion."

The young wife repeated: "I can never part with it."

"But, my dear!" the wretched Berry wrung her hands, divided between
compassion and a sense of injury. "My dear!" she kept expostulating like
a mute.

"I know all that you would say, Mrs. Berry. I am very grieved to pain
you. It is mine now, and must be mine. I cannot give it back."

There she sat, suddenly developed to the most inflexible little heroine
in the three Kingdoms.

From her first perception of the meaning of the young bride's words,
Mrs. Berry, a shrewd physiognomist, knew that her case was hopeless,
unless she treated her as she herself had been treated, and seized the
ring by force of arms; and that she had not heart for.

"What!" she gasped faintly, "one's own lawful wedding-ring you wouldn't
give back to a body?"

"Because it is mine, Mrs. Berry. It was yours, but it is mine now. You
shall have whatever you ask for but that. Pray, forgive me! It must be
so."

Mrs. Berry rocked on her chair, and sounded her hands together. It
amazed her that this soft little creature could be thus firm. She tried
argument.

"Don't ye know, my dear, it's the fatalest thing you're inflictin'
upon me, reelly! Don't ye know that bein' bereft of one's own lawful
wedding-ring's the fatalest thing in life, and there's no prosperity
afte