I _would_ ask you to-night, but--" she hesitated,
and Lucy let down her veil.
"No, thank you, not now; my sister will be fretting as it is.
Good-morning"; and his steps were heard retreating as Mrs. Wilson
mounted the cart.
"Well, I should have liked to have taken him home and warmed him a
bit," said the good woman to Lucy; "it is enough to give him the
rheumatics for life. However, he is not the first honest man as has
had a drop too much, and taken 's rest without a feather-bed. Alack,
miss, why, you are all of a tremble! What ails _you?_ I'm a fool
to ask. Ah! well, you'll soon be at home, and naught to vex you. That
is right; have a good cry, do. Ay, ay, _'tis_ hard to be forced
to leave our nest. But all places are bright where love abides; and
there's honest hearts both here and there, and the same sky above us
wherever we wander, and the God of the fatherless above that; and
better a peaceful cottage than a palace full of strife." And with many
such homely sayings the rustic consoled her nursling on their little
journey, not quite in vain.
CHAPTER XXVI.
NEXT morning the house was in an uproar. Servants ran to and fro, and
the fish-pond was dragged at Mr. Fountain's request. But on these
occasions everybody claims a right to speak, and Jane came into the
breakfast-room and said: "If you please, mum, Miss Lucy isn't in the
pond, for she have taken a good part of her clothes, and all her
jewels."
This piece of common sense convinced everybody on the spot except Mrs.
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