It was appointed for the 15th of January, that being the day when Lucy came of age, and the very afternoon succeeding Anna’s interview with Mr. Hastings the little lady came down to New York to direct about her bridal trousseau making, in the city. She was brimming over with happiness and her face was a perfect gleam of sunshine, when she came next day to Anna’s room, and throwing off her wrappings plunged at once into the subject uppermost in her thoughts, telling first how she and Arthur had quarrelled,—“not quarrelled as uncle and aunt Hetherton and lots of people do, but differed so seriously that I cried and had to give up, too,” she said. “I wanted you for bridesmaid, and do you think, he objected; not objected to you, but to bridesmaids generally, and he carried his point, so that we are just to stand up stiff and straight alone, except as you’ll all be round me in the aisle. You’ll be well by that time, and I want you very near to me,” Lucy said, squeezing the icy hand, whose coldness made her start and exclaim, “Why, Anna, how cold you are, and how pale you are looking. You have been so sick, and I am so well; it don’t seem quite right, does it? And Arthur, too, is so thin that I have coaxed him to raise whiskers to cover the hollows in his cheeks. He looks a heap better now, though he was always handsome. I do so wonder that you two never fell in love, and I tell him so most every time I see him, for I always think of you then.” It was terrible to Anna to sit and hear all this, and the room grew dark as she listened, but she forced back her pain, and stroking the curly head almost resting on her lap, and said kindly, “You love him very much, don’t you, darling,—so much that it would be hard to give him up?” “Yes, oh yes, I could not give him up now, except to God. I trust I could do that, though once I could not, I am sure,” and nestling closer to Anna, Lucy whispered to her of the hope that she was better than she used to be,—that daily intercourse with Arthur had not been without its effect, and now she believed she tried to do right from a higher motive than just to please him. “God bless you, darling,” was Anna’s response, as she clasped the hand of the young girl, who was now far more worthy to be Arthur’s wife than once she had been. If Anna had ever had a thought of telling Arthur, it would have been put aside by that interview with Lucy. She could not harm that pure, loving, trusting girl, and she sent her from her with a kiss and a blessing, praying silently that she might never know a shadow of the pain which she was suffering. CHAPTER X. MRS. MEREDITH’S CONSCIENCE.