hich wounded his
companion's tender heart.

"He was so different when he was young," said Miss Wodehouse, with a
suppressed sob--"he was a favourite everywhere. You would not have
looked so if you had known him then. Oh, Mr Wentworth, promise me that
you will not turn your back upon him if he comes home, after all your
kindness. I will tell Lucy how much you have done for him," said Miss
Wodehouse. She was only half-conscious of her own gentle artifice. She
took the Curate's hand in both her own before he left her, and said it
was such a comfort to have his advice to rely upon; and she believed
what she said, though Mr Wentworth himself knew better. The poor lady
sat down in Lucy's chair, and had a cry at her ease after he went
away. She was to tell Lucy--but how? and she sat pondering this hard
question till all the light had faded out of the room, and the little
window which was not shuttered dispersed only a grey twilight through
the empty place. The lamp, meantime, had been lighted in the little
parlour where Lucy sat, very sad, in her black dress, with 'In
Memoriam' on the table by her, carrying on a similar strain in her
heart. She was thinking of the past, so many broken scenes of which
kept flashing up before her, all bright with indulgent love and
tenderness--and she was thinking of the next day, when she was to see
all that remained of her good father laid in his grave. He was not
very wise nor remarkable among men, but he had been the tenderest
father to the child of his old age; and in her heart she was praying
for him still, pausing now and then to think whether it was right. The
tears were heavy in her young eyes, but they were natural tears, and
Lucy had no more thought that there was in the world anything sadder
than sorrow, or that any complications lay in her individual lot, than
the merest child in Prickett's Lane. She thought of going back to the
district, all robed and invested in the sanctity of her grief--she
thought it was to last for ever, as one has the privilege of thinking
when one is young; and it was to this young saint, tender towards all
the world, ready to pity everybody, and to save a whole race, if that
had been possible, that Miss Wodehouse went in, heavy and burdened,
with her tale of miserable vice, unkindness, estrangement. How was it
possible to begin? Instead of beginning, poor Miss Wodehouse,
overpowered by her anxieties and responsibilities, was taken ill and
fainted, and had