Lucy therefore seemed the one who should accompany Amy, and she herself felt that it was an occasion on which she might make some return for the kindness she had met with in her uncle's family. So her visit to Ashleigh was given up, and Amy's delight at finding that she was to accompany her to Oakvale, was enough to make her forget any disappointment which her decision had involved. They were to be received into the family of a friend of the doctor's, a widow lady, who frequently received invalids as boarders, with whom little Amy would receive all the care and comfort she needed. A few days before their departure, Lucy at last received, through Bessie Ford, the address of Nelly Connor's mistress. Stella, who, notwithstanding her raillery at Lucy's _protegee_, had a sort of latent interest in Nelly, from her association with her pleasant visit to Ashleigh, accompanied her cousin in her long walk to look for the house. On reaching it at last, tired and hot, the door was opened, not by Nelly, as Lucy had hoped, but by an unprepossessing-looking woman, whose hard face grew more rigid when informed what was the object of her visit. "You needn't come here to look for her," she replied grimly; "she's left this some time since, and I don't never want to set eyes on her again." "Is she not here, then? Where is she gone?" "I don't know," was the reply, "and I don't want to know. A girl that could behave as she done to one who took such pains with her, and kept her so long, ain't a girl to my taste. I wash my hands of her." "But perhaps you could tell us what place she went to from you?" persisted Lucy. "I am a friend of hers, and would like to find her out." "Well, she is no credit to her friends," said the woman, rather pleased at being able to give her a bad character where it might be of some consequence. "And as for the vagrant character she went off with, I'd be very sorry to have any acquaintance with him." Finding the uselessness of prosecuting her inquiries there, Lucy bade Mrs. Williams good-day, feeling sure that Nelly's conduct had been misrepresented,--an opinion shared by Stella, who had taken a strong dislike to the woman's grim demeanour and spiteful tone,--and very sorry for having lost the only clue to her _protegee_ once more. XIII. _A Friendship._ "We had been girlish friends, With hearts that, like the summer's half-oped buds, Grew close, and hived their sweetness for each other." Lucy and Amy were soon settled in Mrs. Browne's pleasant little cottage at Oakvale, a pretty sheltered village surrounded by hills, clothed principally with noble oaks, whence it derived its name. Mrs. Browne's house lay a little way out of the village, amid green fields and lanes, which, after the hot, dusty city streets, were inexpressibly refreshing to Lucy, recalling old times at Ashleigh.