She asked me to
dinner."
Said Lucy to herself: "The man is a fool! Poor Mr. Dodd! _he_
would not have shown me my tombstone--to amuse me." And she dismissed
the subject from her mind.
She sent away the carriage and entered Mr. Bazalgette's house on foot.
After some consideration she determined to employ Jane, a girl of some
tact, to break her existence to her aunt. She glided into the
drawing-room unobserved, fully expecting to find Jane at work there
for Mrs. Bazalgette. But the room was empty. While she hesitated what
to do next, the handle of the door was turned, and she had only just
time to dart behind a heavy window-curtain, when it opened, and Mrs.
Bazalgette. walked slowly and silently in, followed by a woman. Mrs.
Bazalgette seated herself and sighed deeply. Her companion kept a
respectful silence. After a considerable pause, Mrs. Bazalgette said a
few words in a voice so thoroughly subdued and solemn, and every now
and then so stifled, that Lucy's heart yearned for her, and nothing
but the fear of frightening her aunt into a hysterical fit kept her
from flying into her arms.
"I need not tell you," said Mrs. Bazalgette, "why I sent for you. You
know the sad bereavement that has fallen on me, but you cannot know
all I have lost in her. Nobody can tell what she was to all of us, but
most of all to me. I was her darling, and she was mine." Here tears
choked Mrs. Bazalgette's words, for a while. Recovering herself, she
paid a tribute to the character of the deceased.
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