kind--what could it be but kind? Perhaps he had divined the attitude which, in intention at least, she had taken toward his family. Lucy’s thoughts had never turned the way of love-making. She had not as yet encountered any one who had touched her youthful fancy. It was no virtue on her part; she sat like one on the edge of the stream musing before she put her foot into the boat which might lead her--whither? But, in the meantime, the thoughts in her heart were all serious. Was she not pausing too long, lingering unduly upon the margin of her life--not doing the work which had been put into her hands to do? Lucy had got so deep in these thoughts that she did not hear the noise and jar with which a hansom cab came to the door; or, at least, hearing it, paid no attention; for it is very difficult to discriminate in a street whether a carriage is stopping at number ten or number eleven, and hansom cabs were not commonly heard at Lady Randolph’s at night. Even the movement in the house did not rouse her; she had not the ease of a child in the family, though she was of so much importance in the house. She sat quite still, feeling by turns a refreshing breath steal over her from the windows, watching the flutter of the curtains, and the glimmer of the stars, which she could see through them, through the upper panes of the long windows; and vaguely amused by the suggestion furnished to her mind by the passing carriages, the consciousness of society behind. She was so well entertained by this, and by her own thoughts, which were many, that she had scarcely opened the book. She held it in her hand; she had looked again at the dedication, feeling half flattered, half annoyed, and had read a page or two. Then, more interested, as yet, in her own story, or in this pause, so full of meaning and suggestion, before it began, had closed again upon her fingers the new novel. Could anything in it be so wonderful as her own position, so full of that vague question which, in Lucy’s mind, was more a state than a query? She dallied with the book, feeling herself a more present and a more important heroine than any imaginary Imogen.