ommon weal.

"No," she said, "I know you didn't. And, indeed, Dick, I suppose I don't
love Herbert as well as I ought; but--but, Dick, you don't know what it
is to be a girl. You can go off to Cambridge, and presently you will go
out into the world and live your own life in your own way. But it's
different for me, Dick. A girl is not supposed to want to live her own
life; she is just part of the home, and the home----. Well, Dick, you
know father's life, and mother--poor mother----"

"Yes," I said, "that's so."

"Well, Dick, I'm afraid it seems pretty selfish, but I do want to live
my own way, and I do get terribly tired of--of----"

"Of the 'servant question,' for instance."

"Exactly."

"And you think you can live your own life with Woodthrop?"

"Why, I think he is very kind and good, Dick, and he says there's no
reason why I shouldn't hunt, if I can manage with one mount, and we can
have friends of mine to stay, and--and so on."

"Yes, I see. You will be mistress of a house."

"And, of course, I like him very much, Dick; he really is good."

"Yes."

That was how Lucy felt about her marriage. There seemed to me to be a
good deal lacking; but then I was rather given to concentrating my
attention upon flaws and gaps. And when I was next at home, at the time
of my father's death, I could not help feeling that the engagement was
something to be thankful for. A hundred and fifty a year would mean a
good deal of pinching for my mother alone, as things went then; but for
mother and Lucy together it would have been painfully short commons.
Life, even in the country, was an expensive business at that time
despite the current worship of cheapness and of "free" trade, as our
Quixotic fiscal policy was called. The sum total of our wants and
fancied wants had been climbing steadily, while our individual
capability in domestic and other simple matters had been on the decline
for a long while.

In the end we decided that my mother and Lucy should establish
themselves in apartments on the outskirts of Davenham Minster, which
apartments would serve my mother permanently, with the relinquishment of
a single room after Lucy's marriage. I saw them both established,
gathered my few personal belongings in a trunk and a couple of bags, and
started for London on a brilliantly fine morning toward the end of June.

At that time a young man went to London as a matter of course, when
launching out for himself. It was not that fol