explain, which had the effect of that "proper pride" which is inculcated
upon every woman, and yet was something different. Lucy would have died
rather than give Lady Randolph ground to suppose that she had quarrelled
with her husband, and as she could not explain the matter to her, it was
necessary to efface all signs of perturbation as far as that was
possible. The elder lady was reading her letters when Lucy came in, but
she raised her eyes at once with the keenest watchfulness. Young Lady
Randolph was pale--but at no time had she much colour. She came in
quite simply, without any explanation or giving of reasons, and sat down
in her usual place near the window, from which the sunshine, as it was
now afternoon, was beginning to die away. Then Lucy gave a slight start
to see a letter placed for her on the little table beside her work. She
had few correspondents at any time, and when Jock and Lady Randolph were
both at the Hall received scarcely any letters. She took it up and
looked at its outside with a little surprise.

"I forgot to tell you, Lucy," the Dowager said at this point, "that
there was a letter for you. Tom placed it there. He said it was from
Jock's tutor, and I hope sincerely, my dear, it does not mean that Jock
has got into any scrape----"

"A scrape," said Lucy, "why should he have got into a scrape?" in
unbounded surprise; for this was a thing that never had happened
throughout Jock's career.

"Oh, boys are so often in trouble," Lady Randolph said, while Lucy
opened her letter in some trepidation. But the first words of the letter
disturbed her more than any story about Jock was likely to do. It
brought the crisis nearer, and made immediate action almost
indispensable. It ran as follows:--

"Dear Lady Randolph--In accordance with Jock's request, which he
assured me was also yours, I have made all the inquiries you wished
about the Churchill family. It was not very difficult to do, as
there is but one voice in respect to them. Mr. Churchill himself is
represented to me as a model of all that a clergyman ought to be.
Whatever we may think of his functions, that he should have all the
virtues supposed to be attached to them is desirable in every point
of view; and he is a gentleman of good sense and intelligence
besides, which is not always implied even in the character of a
saint. It seems that the failure of an inheritance, which he had
ever