"You would have done no such thing," said Mrs John; "you would have gone off and married; I know how girls do. You have not married now, because you have been too comfortable, Lucilla. You have had everything your own way, and all that you wanted, without any of the bother. It is very strange how differently people's lots are ordered. I was married at seventeen--and I am sure I have not known what it was to have a day's health----" "Dear Aunt Jemima!" said her affectionate niece, kissing her, "but papa shall see if he cannot give you something, and we will take such care of you while you are here." Mrs John was softened in spite of herself; but still she shook her head. "It is very nice of you to say so, my dear," she said, "and it's pleasant to feel that one has somebody belonging to one; but I have not much confidence in your papa. He never understood my complaints. I used to be very sorry for your poor mamma. He never showed that sympathy--but I did not mean to blame him to you, Lucilla. I am sure he is a very good father to you." "He has been a perfect old angel," said Miss Marjoribanks; and then the conversation came to a pause, as it was time to dress for dinner. Mrs John Marjoribanks had a very nice room, and everything that was adapted to make her comfortable; but she too had something to think of when the door closed upon Lucilla, and she was left with her maid and her hot water and her black velvet gown. Perhaps it was a little inconsistent to wear a black velvet gown with her widow's cap; it was a question which she had long debated in her mind before she resigned herself to the temptation--but then it always looked so well, and was so very profitable! and Mrs John felt that it was incumbent upon her to keep up a respectable appearance for Tom's sake. Tom was very much in her mind at that moment, as indeed he always was; for though it was a long time ago, she could not get the idea out of her head that he must have said something to Lucilla before he went off to India; and he had a way of asking about his cousin in his letters; and though she would have done anything to secure her boy's happiness, and was on the whole rather fond of her niece, yet the idea of the objections her brother-in-law would have to such a match, excited to the uttermost the smouldering pride which existed in Aunt Jemima's heart. He was better off, and had always been better off, than her poor John--and he had robust health and an awful scorn of the coddling, to which, as he said, she had subjected his brother; and he had money enough to keep _his_ child luxuriously, and make her the leader of Carlingford society, while _her_ poor boy had to go to India and put himself in the way of all kinds of unknown diseases and troubles. Mrs John was profoundly anxious to promote her son's happiness, and would gladly have given every penny she had to get him married to Lucilla, "if that was what he wanted," as she justly said;