And though this annoyance was not at all of the kind he imagined, it was still good for her not to be left to invent little speeches to be made to Mrs. Russell, or to imagine dialogues that might never take place. Lucy’s mind had been in a good deal of excitement when they set out. She had resolved to make the plunge, to announce her intentions to Mrs. Russell and though there was nothing but good in these intentions, still it requires almost as much courage to inform a person who has no natural claim upon you that you mean to provide for her as it does to interfere in any other way in the concerns of a stranger; or at least, this was how Lucy felt. Her heart beat; had she been a poor governess going to look for a situation she could not have been more nervous about the result of the interview. But the summer morning was exhilarating, and Sir Thomas talked to her all the way. He told her of a great many other rides taken in very different circumstances; he took her for little excursions, so to speak, into his own life; he made her laugh, he led her out of herself. When she reached Mrs. Russell’s door she had almost forgotten how momentous was the act she was about to do. “I will come back for you,” Sir Tom cried waving his hand. He did not come up the steep bit of a street. How kind he was--not oppressing her with too much even of his own company! Lucy had not known how she was to get rid of him when she reached the house. The house looked more neglected than ever when Lucy went in. She could not but notice that as soon as she appeared, the blind of the dining-room, which faced the street, was hurriedly drawn down. She could, it was true, command it as she sat there on her horse; but she was wounded by the suggestion that she might intend to spy upon them, to look at something which she was not wanted to see. In the hall, outside the door of this closed room, a breakfast-tray was standing, though it was noon. The grimy little maid was more grimy than ever. She showed Lucy into the faded drawing-room where the blinds were drawn down for the sun, which, however, streamed in at all the crevices, showing the dust and the faded colors. There were flowers on the table in a trumpery glass vase, all limp and dying. A shabby, miserable room, of which no care was taken, and which looked like the abode of people who had lost heart, and even ceased to care for appearances. Lucy’s heart sunk as she looked round. She who was so tidy, with so much bourgeois orderliness in her nature, felt all this much more than perhaps an observer with higher faculties would have done. It looked as if it had not been “touched” this morning, and it was with a pang of pity that Lucy regarded the evident disorganization of a house in which the chief room, the woman’s place, “had not been touched” at noon of a summer day. It almost brought the tears to her eyes. And she had a long time to wait to note all the