loneliness, she would yet bear it until the appointed moment; and, though she might have no more success than with the Russells, still she must flounder on. If she could only find somebody to help her, to give her a little guidance, to tell her how much, not how little, she ought to give? There was one indeed who might be a help to her, who would understand. But was it possible that even Sir Tom had deserted her? Three days, and he had not come to see her? At this thought there came into Lucy’s eyes something that felt very like a tear. This, however, was the last of these silent days. In the morning Katie Russell burst upon her, all radiant with pleasure. “Oh, what a lucky girl you are!” Katie cried; “you have got all we used to talk of, Lucy, I never thought it would come true; but here you are, just looking the same as ever, though you have been living among swells; and come down to dazzle us all at Farafield, with beautiful horses, and heaps of money, and everybody after you. To think that all this should have happened to you, and nothing at all to me!” Lucy did not like her friend’s tone. What had come over her that everything seemed to hurt her? “I don’t think very much has happened to me,” she said. “What has happened was all before I left here.” Katie shook her head and her curly locks till she had almost shaken them off. “I know a great deal more than you think. I know what you were doing in London, and how you went riding about, and turning people’s heads. What a lucky girl you are, with everything that heart can desire! I don’t envy you, not wicked envy, because you are always as good as gold, and never give yourself airs; but you _are_ a lucky girl. You don’t even know how different we poor ones are. I have never turned any one’s head,” said Katie, with a sigh. “Do not talk of anything so silly,” said Lucy, blushing, she did not quite know why. “I think you are laughing at me; and to laugh at me is not kind, for I am not clever as you are, and can not make fun of you. Katie, tell me all about yourself, what you are doing; and tell me how they all are at Hampstead, and if they have got into the new house.”