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510 "But you will," said Mrs. Crawley. "Yes, dear, you will. I know that it is proper now that you should return. Nay, but we will not have you any longer. And the poor dear children, too, they may return. How am I to thank Mrs. Robarts for what she has done for us?"

It was settled that if Mrs. Robarts came on the following day Lucy should go back with her; and then, during the long watches of the night—for on this last night Lucy would not leave the bedside of her new friend till long after the dawn had broken—she did tell Mrs. Crawley what was to be her destiny in life. To herself there seemed nothing strange in her new position, but to Mrs. Crawley it was wonderful that she—she, poor as she was—should have an embryo peeress at her bedside, handing her her cup to drink, and smoothing her pillow that she might be at rest. It was strange, and she could hardly maintain her accustomed familiarity. Lucy felt this at the moment.

"It must make no difference, you know," said she, eagerly—"none at all between you and me. Promise me that it shall make no difference."

The promise was of course exacted, but it was not possible that such a promise should be kept.

Very early on the following morning—so early that it woke her while still in her first sleep—there came a letter for her from the Parsonage. Mrs. Robarts had written it after her return home from Lady Lufton's dinner.

The letter said:

",—How am I to congratulate you, and be eager enough in wishing you joy? I do wish you joy, and am so very happy. I write now chiefly to say that I shall be over with you about twelve to-morrow, and that I must bring you away with me. If I did not, some one else, by no means so trustworthy, would insist on doing it.'"

But this, though it was thus stated to be the chief part of the letter, and though it might be so in matter, was by no means so in space. It was very long, for Mrs. Robarts had sat writing it till past midnight.

"'I will not say any thing about him,' she went on to say, after two pages had been filled with his name, 'but I must tell you how beautifully she has behaved. You will own that she is a dear woman, will you not?'"

Lucy had already owned it many times since the visit of yesterday, and had declared to herself, as she has continued to declare ever since, that she had never doubted it.