“What will be a lie?” said sober-minded Matilda. “You don’t need to say anything that isn’t true. It is not as if you had changed your name. You are Mrs. Arthur, and you would be Mrs. Arthur whatever happened. I do believe Miss Lucy suspects something; she has a way of taking things so quietly as if nothing was new to her. And anyhow, if the very worst should come to the worst, why, you’re not compelled to go.” “But I will go,” said Nancy, with flashing eyes. “Oh, just to be there, to see it all, to know just where he would have taken me, where I might have lived if I hadn’t been a----. I will go! I have made up my mind to that. She called me, my dear--did I tell you she called me my dear? and said old Sir John had raved about me; and begged me to go.” The vivid blush of pleasure came back to Nancy’s face as she spoke, and her eyes again blazed, opposite the lamp, like rival yet reflecting lights. A vague smile came upon her face; there was a little vanity in it, pleased satisfaction with the conquests she had made. Then a cloud came suddenly over it. “But all the same it will be cheating, oh, it will be cheating, Matty! I won’t give it up; but you may begin to pack the boxes,” said Nancy, suddenly. “After I have been there, I shall have to tell them everything, and we must go away.” “Go away! I think you are out of your senses, Nancy. We have just paid the second month in advance, and they will never give it back; and consider how expensive it is travelling with so much luggage--everything we have in the world. I thought,” said Matilda, aggrieved, “that we should at least have stayed here, now that we are here, till something was settled, till you had made up your mind one way or other.” “I have made up my mind. When we came here I never thought they would take any notice of us. Why should they have taken any notice of us--a couple of poor girls in a small cottage, not knowing anyone? I wanted just to see what kind of people they were, that was all,” said Nancy, earnestly. “I never thought of anything more. Why should they have thought of us at all? We were quite out of their way.” “Well,” said Matilda, to whom it appeared that here was a good opportunity of showing her own superior judgment, “that was because you thought they were not very nice people. You made up your mind about them before you knew them. But they _are_ nice people. I never wish to see a more kind lady than her ladyship is.” “Matty, dear, I don’t mean to be nasty; but if you would say Lady Curtis, not her ladyship--remember that she is my mother-in-law.”