“Her duty, poor soul! how was it her duty to marry me? Poor thing, I’ve always been very sorry for her,” said Trevor. “Women have hard times in this world. But a girl with a great fortune, she may be kept out of it.” Here he paused, while his companion sat opposite to him, his very mouth open with amazement. It was indeed more than amazement, it was consternation which filled the honest mind of Richard Ford. He did not know what to think of this; was it a new phase of Radicalism worse than any that had gone before? He would have said it was Popery if he had not known how far from any ideas of that description his old friend was. While he sat thus half stupefied with astonishment, old Trevor took up his pen again hastily. “Now I think of it,” he said, “Lucy belongs to the country, I don’t hold much with the Church, but the Church should have a hand in it. I’ll add the rector to the committee. That will be only a proper respect.” “The rector!” said Ford, pale with wonder, “and Mr. Williamson at the chapel, and Mr. Rushton, and Mrs. Stone, and me--” “You forget Lady Randolph,” said old Trevor, with a chuckle; “that’s exactly as it ought to be, all classes represented, the right thing for a girl in Lucy’s position. To tell the truth,” he added, laying down his pen, “I don’t know that there ever was a girl in Lucy’s position before. It’s a very fine position, and I hope she’s been brought up to feel all the responsibilities. I don’t want to brag of myself; but given an unusual situation like hers, and I think I’ve hit the right thing for it. When you are born a great lady that’s different; but a girl with the greatest fortune in England, proceeding out of the lower classes--” “I don’t see,” said Ford, aggrieved, “that we need call ourselves the lower classes; the middle--that is about what it is--the middle class--the strength of the country.” “Bosh!” said Trevor, “she will go to Lady Randolph’s, and there she will see fine people, and no doubt she’ll be courted. There is nobody like them for knowing the value of money; and then she will come to you, Dick Ford, where she will see nobody, or else a few young clerks and that sort.” “I assure you,” said Ford solemnly, “I will take care that she shall see no one here; not a man shall enter the house, not a creature come near her, while she is under my care.” “That will be lively for Lucy,” said the old man, “you numskull! If she never sees any one, how is she to make a choice?” “Mr. Trevor,” said Ford, with a voice so solemn and serious that it trembled, “you would not wish your heiress to make a choice among the young clerks? Whom you say,” he added after a moment, in a tone of offense, “she will meet here.”