John Hutchinson is at Richmond, lodging at the house of his music-master. He is twenty-two years of age. The village is full of "good company," for the young Princes are being educated in the palace, and many "ingenious persons entertained themselves at that place." The music-master's house is the resort of the king's musicians; "and divers of the gentlemen and ladies that were affected with music came thither to hear." There was a little girl "tabled" in the same house with John Hutchinson, who was taking lessons of the lutanist--a charming child, full of vivacity and intelligence. She told John she had an elder sister--a studious and retiring person--who was gone with her mother, Lady Apsley, into Wiltshire--and Lucy was going to be married, she thought. The little girl ever talked of Lucy--and the gentlemen talked of Lucy--and one day a song was sung which Lucy had written--and John and the vivacious child walked, another day, to Lady Apsley's house, and there, in a closet, were Lucy's Latin books. Mr. Hutchinson grew in love with Lucy's image; and when the talk was more rife that she was about to be married--and some said that she was indeed married--he became unhappy--and "began to believe there was some magic in the place, which enchanted men out of their right senses; but the sick heart could not be chid nor advised into health." At length Lucy and her mother came home; and Lucy was not married. Then John and Lucy wandered by the pleasant banks of the Thames, in that spring-time of 1638, and a "mutual friendship" grew up between them. Lucy now talked to him of her early life; how she had been born in the Tower of London, of which her late father, Sir John Apsley, was the governor; how her mother was the benefactress of the prisoners, and delighted to mitigate the hard fortune of the noble and the learned, and especially Sir Walter Raleigh, by every needful help to his studies and amusements; how she herself grew serious amongst these scenes, and delighted in nothing but reading, and would never practise her lute or harpsichords, and absolutely hated her needle. John was of a like serious temper. Their fate was determined. The spring is far advanced into summer. On a certain day the friends on both sides meet to conclude the terms of the marriage. Lucy is not to be seen. She has taken the small-pox. She is very near death. At length John is permitted to speak to his betrothed. Tremblingly and mournfully she comes into his presence. She is "the most deformed person that could be seen." Who could tell the result in words so touching as Lucy's own? "He was nothing troubled at it, but married her as soon as she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to look on her. But God recompensed his justice and constancy by restoring her; though she was longer than ordinary before she recovered to be as well as before." They were married on the 3d of July, 1638.