“You have a harder lot than ever I thought it, my poor Lucy,” said he, looking into her eyes with an affectionate solicitude. “This is so unlike our old home.” “Oh, so unlike!” said she; and her lip quivered and her eyes grew glazy. “And can you bear it, girl? Does it not seem to you like a servitude to put up with such causeless passion, such capricious anger as this?” She shook her head mournfully, but made no answer. “If it be your woman's nature enables you to do it, all I can say is, I don't envy you your sex.” “But, Tom, remember his years,--remember his age.” “By Jove, he took good care to remind me of my own!--not that he was so far wrong in what he said of me, Lucy. I felt all the while he had 'hit the blot,' and I would have owned it too, if he had n't taken himself off so quickly.” “If you had, Tom,--if you had said but one word to this purport,--you would have seen how nobly forgiving he could be in an instant.” “Forgiving,--humph! I don't think the forgiveness was to have come from _him_.” “Sir William wishes to speak with you, Miss Lucy,” said the butler, entering hastily. “I must go, Tom,--good-bye. I will write to you tomorrow,--to-night, if I can,--good-bye, my dearest brother; be sure to come on Tuesday,--mind, Tuesday. You will be certain to find me alone.” CHAPTER XVIII. THE FIRST LETTER HOME. The post of the morning after the events of our last chapter brought Lucy a letter from her father. It was the first since his departure. What chapters in life are these first letters after absence! How do they open to us glimpses of not only new scenes and incidents, but of emotions and sentiments which, while we had relied upon them, we had never so palpably realized before! There is such ecstasy in thinking that time and space are no barriers against love, and that, even as we read, the heart that sent the message is beating with affection for us. Lendrick's letter to his daughter was full of fondness; her image had evidently gone with him through all the changes of the voyage, and their old home mingled in every thought of the new life before him. It was plain enough how unwillingly he turned from the past to the present, and how far rather he would revel in the scenes around the Shannon than turn to the solitary existence that awaited him beyond the seas.