And there was another trouble which for awhile was very grievous. Telegraphy is an art not yet perfected among us and is still subject to many changes. Now it was the case at this time that the pundits of the office were in favour of a system of communicating messages by ear instead of by eye. The little dots and pricks which even in Lucy’s time had been changed more than once, had quickly become familiar to her. No one could read and use her telegraphic literature more rapidly or correctly than Lucy Graham. But now that this system of little tinkling sounds was coming up,--a system which seemed to be very pleasant to those females who were gifted with musical aptitudes,--she found herself to be less quick, less expert, less useful than her neighbours. This was very sad, for she had always been buoyed up by an unconscious conviction of her own superior intelligence. And then, though there had been neither promises nor threats, she had become aware,--at any rate had thought that she was aware,--that those girls who could catch and use the tinkling sounds would rise more quickly to higher pay than the less gifted ones. She had struggled therefore to overcome the difficulty. She had endeavoured to force her ears to do that which her ears were not capable of accomplishing. She had failed, and to-day had owned to herself that she must fail. But Sophy had been one of the first to catch the tinkling sounds. Lucy came back to her room sad and down at heart and full of troubles. She had a long task of needlework before her, which had been put by for awhile through causes consequent on Sophy’s illness. “Now she is better perhaps he will marry her and take her away, and I shall be alone again,” she said to herself, as though declaring that such a state of things would be a relief to her, and almost a happiness. “He has just been here,” said Sophy to her as soon as she entered the room. Sophy was painfully, cruelly smart, clean and starched, and shining about her locks,--so prepared that, as Lucy thought, she must have evidently expected him. “Well;--and what did he say?” “He has not said much yet, but it was very good of him to come and see me,--and he was looking so handsome. He is going out somewhere this evening to some political meeting with two or three other men, and he was got up quite like a gentleman. I do like to see him look like that.” “I always think a working man looks best in his working clothes,” said Lucy. “There’s some truth about him then. When he gets into a black coat he is pretending to be something else, but everybody can see the difference.” There was a severity, almost a savageness in this, which surprised Sophy so much that at first she hardly knew how to answer it. “He is going to speak at the meeting,” she said after a pause. “And of course he had to make himself tidy. He told me all that he is going to say. Should you not like to hear him speak?”