the case: “If it is a woman, let it be an income upon which she can live and bring up her children;” nothing could be more decided than this. Nevertheless, Lucy felt her heart jump to her mouth when she heard Mr. Chervil’s heavy yet impetuous feet come hastily upstairs. And Mr. Chervil, as was natural, made a desperate stand, feeling it to be the last. He made Lucy cry, and gave her a great deal of very unpleasant advice; he went further, he bullied her, and made her blush, asking, coarsely, whether it was for the son’s sake that she was so determined to pension the mother? for she had been obliged to give him full particulars of the Russell family and their distresses. It was a terrible morning for the poor little girl. But if the executor ever hoped to make Lucy swerve, or to bully her into giving up her intention, no mistake could be greater. She blushed, and she cried with shame and pain. All the trouble of a child in being violently scolded, the hurts and wounds, the mortification, the sense of injustice, she felt, but she did not yield an inch. Lucy knew the power she had, and no force on earth would have turned her from it. He might hurt her, that was not hard to do, but change her mind he could not; her gentle obstinacy was invincible; she cried, but she stood fast; and naturally the victory fell to her, after that battle. From the beginning Mr. Chervil knew well enough that if she stood out there was nothing to be done, but it seemed to him that fifty must be more than a match for seventeen; and in this he was mistaken, which is not unusual. When, however, all was over, the capitulation signed and sealed, and Lucy, though tearful, intrenched with all her banners flying upon the field of battle, a new sensation awaited the discomfited and angry guardian of her possessions. He thought he had already put up with as much as flesh and blood could bear, but it may be imagined what Mr. Chervil’s feelings were when his ward thus addressed him, putting back a little lock of hair which had got out of its usual tidiness during the struggle (for though there was no actual fighting--far be it from us to insinuate that the angry guardian went the length of blows, though he would have clearly liked to whip her, had he dared--agitation itself puts a girl’s light locks out of order), and pursuing a last tear into the corner of her eyes: “I want a hundred pounds, if you please, directly; I borrowed it yesterday,” said Lucy, with great composure, “from Sir Thomas, and I said I would pay it back to-day.” “You--borrowed a hundred pounds--from Sir Thomas!” His voice gurgled in his throat. It was a wonder that he did not have a fit; the blood rushed to his head, his very breath seemed arrested. It was almost as much as his life--being a man of full habit and sanguine temperament--was worth.