There was no one to acquaint at the lodge but Cousin Mary. It was no use telling the Master, he would confuse it with Dick's courtship that had been over sixty years ago, and he would be telling Nurse Brannan that Lucy's mother first met her lover in a dancing-booth at a fair. The Master's wife was almost past telling; she had been growing weaker day by day ever since that accident; the world had been slipping away from her ever since. She had ceased to take any interest in anything that was going on around her. She seldom spoke now; sight and strength and speech were all failing. When she did speak, she had only one question to ask: 'How is the Master?' But Lucy would not admit that she had any engagement yet to tell anybody about. She had only told Wyatt Edgell that he might go back to work, and she had further told him that he might think of her at certain times. This was all; no promise, no real engagement. Of course he ought not to have taken her into his arms until he was properly engaged. He had been premature, but Lucy had no one but herself to blame for it. This is how Lucy reasoned as she walked back to Newnham with Miss Stubbs. She went straight back without seeing the Master's wife or Cousin Mary; she positively crept out of the lodge as if she had done some shameful thing, and was afraid of being found out. She was very nice to Maria on the way. She called her dear, which is quite an unheard-of thing among the Stoics of Newnham, but Miss Stubbs was not to be taken in. 'It's pretty far gone,' she observed with a sniff, when Lucy made a timid little allusion to Edgell's visit to the gallery. 'Oh dear no, not at all!' Lucy said sweetly. Miss Stubbs raised her red eyebrows. It was those dreadful red eyebrows and red eyelashes that made her so--so unlovely. 'Oh,' she remarked in her unpleasant way, 'I thought I heard--ahem!--some--some kissing. I may have been mistaken; perhaps it was the wind.' 'The wind was very rough this afternoon, dear; it was rattling the shaky old lattice dreadfully.' Miss Stubbs smiled scornfully. There hadn't been a breath of air all the day. 'I suppose it's a settled thing?' she said presently. 'Settled? Oh no; not at all!' 'Then it ought to be!' Maria said sharply. 'You've given him encouragement enough. He's been hanging about the lane every morning this week. It's known all over the place that he's waiting for you.' 'But I haven't met him!' Lucy said stoutly. She wasn't going to be sat upon by Maria. 'No; oh no! you haven't met him this week; we should all have known it if you had, because we've all been on the look-out since that day when you were caught kissing in the lane. I shouldn't have mentioned it--though it's not good form in a woman's college--if it hadn't occurred again to-day. It's all right, I suppose, if you are engaged.' 'But I am not engaged!' said Lucy impatiently. She was not going to be lectured by Maria. Nobody would ever think of kissing Maria in the lane.