“Aha, Lucy!” he said, “that is just my principle, you know; that is what you don’t understand as yet. You are to live with Lady Randolph and the Fords six months each for--unless you can get them all to consent to let you marry somebody before that time--as long as you are a girl, my dear; this is the very crown of my plan, Lucy, without which the other would not be good for much,” he said, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, and pausing to tantalize her. As it was Sunday Lucy had not her knitting, so that she had nothing to do but to look at him, with perfect placid composure as usual, showing no scrap of excitement. “Do you mean it is to be only for a time, papa?” “For--seven years,” he said, “seven years from the time of my death. It is to be hoped that my death will not be very long of coming, or you will be too old to enjoy your freedom. But there is not much fear of that; even if you were thirty before it came, thirty is the finest time of life. You know a great deal by that time, you are not so easily taken in, and you are still fresh and in all your glory. Never mind if fools begin to call you an old maid; a woman is not an old maid at thirty, she is at her best. She can pick and choose, especially when she has a fortune like yours. And by that time you will have got out of the young set--the ball-room set; you will have learned to know people of importance. Yes,” he said, chuckling, “that is the crown of my plan for you, Lucy--for seven years you will be under a little restraint; Mrs. Ford on one hand, Lady Randolph on the other, two people. I flatter myself, just as unlike as can be; and all the men that have a chance will be after you; but none of them will be able to marry you without the consent, you know,” he went on, chuckling once more, “of all these people; which I confess, Lucy, I take to be next to impossible. And then, my dear--then, in seven years complete freedom--freedom to do whatever you like--to marry whom you like--to be your own guardian--your own adviser. It is worth waiting for, Lucy--well worth waiting for. What a prospect!” cried the old man, in an ecstasy, “a well-trained mind used to control, an inexhaustible fortune, nothing to do but to pick and choose among the best people, and still under thirty years of age! By that time you will have learned to be content with nothing less than the best.” Nothing could be more curious than the pleased excitement of the old man, looking forward to this climax of mortal felicity which he had carefully arranged for his child, and the perfect calm of the child herself, who neither realized nor appreciated that blessedness. She said, after awhile, with a soft little sigh, which was half weariness and half a sense of the dreariness of the prospect, “I should think it would be very nice--for a man, papa.” “For a man! nonsense, Lucy; that is just an old fashioned notion. A woman who is thirty, and has a great fortune, and is free to please herself, is as good as any man.”