imidly upon her sister's shoulder. "Think how many
good things you two have done together, dear; and is it likely you are
to be parted like this?" said the injudicious comforter. It felt
rather like another attack of fever to Lucy, as unexpected as the
last.

"Don't speak so, please," said the poor girl, with a momentary shiver.
"It is about Mr Wentworth you mean?" she went on, after a little,
without turning her head. "I--am sorry, of course. I am afraid it will
do him--harm," and then she made a pause, and stumbled over her sewing
with fingers which felt feeble and powerless to the very tips--all on
account of this fever she had had. "But I don't know any reason why
you and I should discuss it, Mary," she said, getting up in her turn,
not quite sure whether she could stand at this early period of her
convalescence, but resolved to try. "We are both Mr Wentworth's
friends--and we need not say any harm of him. I have to get something
out of the storeroom for to-night."

"But, Lucy," said the tender, trembling sister, who did not know how
to be wise and silent, "_I_ trust him, and _you_ don't. Oh, my dear,
it will break my heart. I know some part of it is not true. I know one
thing in which he is quite--quite innocent. Oh, Lucy, my darling, if
you distrust him it will be returning evil for good!" cried poor Miss
Wodehouse, with tears. As for Lucy, she did not quite know what her
sister said. She only felt that it was cruel to stop her, and look at
her, and talk to her; and there woke up in her mind a fierce sudden
spark of resistance to the intolerable.

"Why do you hold me? I may have been ill, but I can stand well enough
by myself," cried Lucy, to her sister's utter bewilderment. "That is,
I--I mean, I have other things to attend to," she cried, breaking into
a few hot tears of mortification over this self-betrayal; and so went
away in a strange glow and tremble of sudden passion, such as had
never been seen before in that quiet house. She went direct to the
storeroom, as she had said, and got out what was wanted; and only
after that was done permitted herself to go up to her own room, and
turn the key in her door. Though she was a Sister of Mercy, and much
beloved in Prickett's Lane, she was still but one of Eve's poor
petulant women-children, and had it in her to fly at an intruder on
her suffering, like any other wounded creature. But she did not make
any wild demonstration of her pain, even when shut up thus in