Lucy’s companion was the governess-pupil, the one among the band of girls whose society her father had counseled her not to seek. Perhaps there was something of the perversity of youth in the preference which, notwithstanding this advice, Lucy felt for the girl whose friendship old Mr. Trevor had decided could be of no use whatever to her. Lucy was not nearly so clever as Katie Russell, who was already a great help in the school, and earning the lessons which she shared with the more advanced pupils. But Lucy was by no means so sure of her inferiority in point of experience as her companion was. She knew, if not the expedients of poverty, yet of economy through Mrs. Ford’s example, and she knew many details of a lower level of existence, lower than anything Katie was acquainted with; and even the shadow of her own future power which had lain upon her from her childhood had stood in the stead of knowledge to Lucy, teaching her many things; but she was a quiet person, thinking much more than she spoke; and she made no reply to this imputation of ignorance, though she thought it a mistake. She replied, with a little closer pressure of her friend’s arm, “Why are you so sure of being an old governess? You will marry--most likely the first of all of us.” “Oh, no, no; don’t you know there are a million more women in England than men? It is in all the papers. Some of us will marry--you, for instance; but there must be a proportion--say five out of twenty, that’s not much,” said Katie, knitting her soft brows, “who never will, and I shall be one of them. For fun,” she said, throwing gravity to the winds, “let us guess who the other four will be.” “Me,” said Lucy, with a gentle composure and indifference alike to matrimony and to grammar. “I think that is what papa would like best--” “That is absurd,” said Katie; “you! You will have a hundred proposals before you are out a year. You will be the very first.” “Put me down, however,” Lucy repeated. “It will be rather a good thing to be kept from getting married, if it is as you say. It will help to set the balance straight. There will be my gentleman for one of you.”