"If you please miss," said Betsy, entering Amy's room, where Mabel was sitting, "will you go to Miss Lucy's room for she is crying and sobbing like any thing, and she has got the door locked and will not open it--something must be the matter." "I will go to her directly, and will soon be back, love," said Mabel, kissing her sister, who never saw her leave without regret. She then went to Lucy's room, and tapping gently, demanded admittance. After a short pause the door was opened by Lucy, whose eyes were swollen with weeping, and her cheeks wet with the tears which were flowing quickly. She had been lying on the bed, and, content with letting Mabel in, she threw herself again upon it hastily, rubbing her eyes with her pocket-handkerchief, though the tears burst forth afresh on every attempt to clear them away. Mabel's woman's heart quickly thought of Clair, and, seating herself by her side, she waited patiently till she became a little composed, and then begged her to say if she could do any thing for her. "Nobody can do anything for me," said Lucy, and the effort to speak called forth a fresh burst of sobs and tears. "What has happened, do tell me?" said Mabel, "has any one been unkind to you, dear Lucy." "The wretch," sobbed Lucy, "the mean-spirited wretch." "I hope you do not speak of Clair," said Mabel, "what can he have been doing?" "Oh, go away," cried Lucy, "go away, I am so unhappy, so wretched, I wish I had never seen him--never come here. Oh! leave me, go away, where shall I hide my face." "I cannot leave you thus--do tell me what he has been doing?" "They will laugh at me at home. What will Miss Lovelace say--oh dear!" "Come, do tell me," said Mabel, anxiously, "I may be able to give you comfort." "Oh, I cannot tell you." "Why not?" "Ah, Mabel, if I were as good as you I should not cry." A faint blush passed over her countenance, and she was silent, till, presently, after many tears and sobs she told Mabel the cause of her distress. She had been walking in the nut avenue by the side of the lane, and had thus overheard the greater part of the conversation between Mr. Ware and his nephew, narrated in the last chapter. The sound of her own name had attracted her attention, and, having once yielded to the temptation of listening, she found, as she imagined, sufficient excuse for wishing to hear all--and enough had, in this manner, reached her ears to send her home full of mortified feeling. Mabel listened, with unfeigned surprise, to the story of this adventure--and to those sentences, which, applying directly to herself, Lucy had most accurately remembered--but, when she heard from her of the admiration which she had so unconsciously inspired, she looked entirely amazed, and at a loss. This Lucy dwelt upon with a candour which surprised her. "The wretch," said the latter, when she had concluded her story--"the worst of it is, that I cannot hate him as he deserves."