Lady Curtis on her side was secretly grieved with her child. She did not make any complaint; she reasoned with herself indeed against the pain she felt, saying to herself that it was natural Lucy should be preoccupied, should talk less freely when they sat together, should have less to say to her mother. Had she not another now for whom she would store up all those outflowings of the heart which had been her mother’s alone? She was, she knew and humbly avowed to herself, ridiculously ready to be wounded, and felt the smallest little unconscious prick from those she loved; but she must be just to Lucy. There was nothing wanting in Lucy that any reasonable mother could wish for; but only they two had been all in all to each other, and Lady Curtis felt that to Lucy she was no longer all in all. Long silences would come between them while she worked at her crewels, and Lucy carried on the varied occupations of a young lady’s afternoon, a young lady who is a parish sovereign, and has a great many small yet important public affairs on hand. Those silences Lady Curtis set down to Durant’s account, and felt a something growing in her mind very different from her former affection for Lewis, which she endeavoured with all her might to crush, without finding it easy to do so. It was natural, and she must be just; while all the time it was not Lewis that was in fault. Fortunately, Lucy herself did not even know that her mother had discovered her embarrassed self-consciousness, and had not the slightest notion that it was set down to the account of Lewis. And thus a little something, which was not so much as a cloud, a mist upon the clear sky, a fantastic vapour, but presaging storm and darkness, began to breathe between them. They were disappointed in each other; sympathy somehow seemed to fail between them. Was it that her mother was _exigeante_, Lucy asked herself--even--painful word--jealous? It was that Lucy had some one else to love, that she was no longer of first importance to her child, the mother thought; and the fact was that both were wrong, that it was neither jealousy on the one side nor desertion on the other, but Nancy--nothing but a secret, the most innocent of secrets, and the most well-intentioned, that did the wrong.