uld be tired to death
waiting for me. Now, don't be polite. I insist upon you going up
first. Thank you. Now I can take my time."

And she took her time accordingly, keeping Mr Wentworth waiting on the
landing to say good-night to her, much to his silent exasperation. When
he got into the shelter of his own sitting-room, he threw himself upon
a sofa, and continued his thoughts with many a troubled addition. A
young man, feeling in a great measure the world before him, conscious of
considerable powers, standing on the very threshold of so much possible
good and happiness,--it was hideous to look up, in his excited
imagination, and see the figures of these three old ladies, worse than
Fates, standing across the prospect and barring the way.

And Lucy, meantime, was undoing her blue ribbons with a thrill of sweet
agitation in her untroubled bosom. Perhaps Mary was right, and it was
about coming to the time when this half-feared, half-hoped revelation
could not be postponed much longer. For it will be perceived that Lucy
was not in much doubt of young Wentworth's sentiments. And then she
paused in the dark, after she had said her prayers, to give one timid
thought to the sweet life that seemed to lie before her so close at
hand--in which, perhaps, he and she were to go out together, she did not
know where, for the help of the world and the comfort of the sorrowful;
and not trusting herself to look much at that ideal, said another
prayer, and went to sleep like one of God's beloved, with a tear too
exquisite to be shed brimming under her long eyelashes. At this crisis
of existence, perhaps for once in her life, the woman has the best of
it; for very different from Lucy's were the thoughts with which the
Curate sought his restless pillow, hearing the rain drip all the night,
and trickle into Mrs Hadwin's reservoirs. The old lady had a passion for
rain-water, and it was a gusty night.

CHAPTER III.

Next week was Passion Week, and full of occupation. Even if it had been
consistent either with Mr Wentworth's principles or Lucy's to introduce
secular affairs into so holy a season, they had not time or opportunity,
as it happened, which was perhaps just as well; for otherwise the
premonitory thrill of expectation which had disturbed Lucy's calm, and
the bitter exasperation against himself and his fate with which Mr
Wentworth had discovered that he dared not say anything, might have
caused an estrangement between them.