her
fortress. She sat down on the sofa, in a kind of dull heaviness,
looking into vacancy. She was not positively thinking of Mr Wentworth,
or of any one thing in particular. She was only conscious of a
terrible difference somehow in everything about her--in the air which
choked her breathing, and the light which blinded her eyes. When she
came to herself a little, she said over and over, half-aloud, that
everything was just the same as it had always been, and that to her at
least nothing had happened; but that declaration, though made with
vehemence, did not alter matters. The world altogether had sustained a
change. The light that was in it was darkened, and the heart stilled.
All at once, instead of a sweet spontaneous career, providing for its
own wants day by day, life came to look like something which required
such an amount of courage and patience and endurance as Lucy had not
at hand to support her in the way; and her heart failed her at the
moment when she found this out.

Notwithstanding, the people who dined at Mr Wodehouse's that night
thought it a very agreeable little party, and more than once repeated
the remark, so familiar to most persons in society in Carlingford--that
Wodehouse's parties were the pleasantest going, though he himself was
humdrum enough. Two or three of the people present had heard the
gossip about Mr Wentworth, and discussed it, as was natural, taking
different views of the subject; and poor Miss Wodehouse took up his
defence so warmly, and with such tearful vehemence, that there were
smiles to be seen on several faces. As for Lucy, she made only a very
simple remark on the subject. She said: "Mr Wentworth is a great
friend of ours, and I think I would rather not hear any gossip about
him." Of course there were one or two keen observers who put a subtle
meaning to this, and knew what was signified by her looks and her ways
all the evening; but, most likely, they were altogether mistaken in
their suppositions, for nobody could possibly watch her so closely as
did Miss Wodehouse, who know no more than the man in the moon, at the
close of the evening, whether her young sister was very wretched or
totally indifferent. The truth was certainly not to be discovered, for
that night at least, in Lucy's looks.

CHAPTER XIV.

The next afternoon there were signs of a considerable commotion in Mr
Elsworthy's shop. Rosa had disappeared altogether, and Mrs Elsworthy,
with an ominous redne