“I know,” said Mrs. Ford, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. “I’ve seen it from the very first in your face, Lucy. I’m not a fine lady, like your Lady Randolph; I can’t put a smooth face on everything and let you go sailing over a precipice as if it were nothing to me. I am only one that speaks out plain what is in my mind, and one that has known you from your cradle, and have no ends of my own, but your interest at heart. But to be plain and true’s not enough for you any longer. I’ve known it all this time, I’ve seen it in your face; but I didn’t think you would put it into words, and before strangers, and me Lucilla Rainy’s cousin, and one that has known you from your cradle, and nursed your father on his death-bed; oh, I never thought you could have the heart to put it into words!” “Have I said anything wrong?” said Lucy, in great distress. She was bewildered by the sudden attack, and horrified by the scene, “before strangers;” for Lucy had all the instincts of respectability, and to see Mrs. Ford’s tears filled her with pain and involuntary compunction; but she was not so emotional as to lose her sense of justice. “I did not mean to say anything wrong,” she repeated, anxiously. Mrs. Ford’s tears were a little slow in coming; she sniffed, and she held her handkerchief to her face, which was red with anger and excitement, but she did not possess, at any time, a great command over tears. Then Philip took up the part of peace-maker. “You said yourself, two minutes ago, that Lucy was not changed,” he said. “Because you think she should be on her guard, you don’t want her to be unhappy; and if she does not like her friends, how can she be happy, Mrs. Ford? So good a friend as you are must know that. To be sure,” said Philip, “we of the Rainy family can’t help being a little anxious and fussy about our heiress, can we? We think more of her than other people can, and care more for her.” “That is the truth, that is the very truth,” cried Mrs. Ford. And thus the incident blew over in professions that Lucy’s interest and happiness were all she thought of, on one side, and, on the other, that she meant to say nothing which could hurt Mrs. Ford’s feelings.