in the habit of doing; to deduce a clear conscience. Conscience and Lucy
went together.

It was a soft fair day. The Rubicon sparkled in the morning sun. One of
those days when London embraces the prospect of summer, and troops forth
all its babies. The pavement, the squares, the parks, were early alive
with the cries of young Britain. Violet and primrose girls, and organ
boys with military monkeys, and systematic bands very determined in tone
if not in tune, filled the atmosphere, and crowned the blazing procession
of omnibuses, freighted with business men, Cityward, where a column of
reddish brown smoke,--blown aloft by the South-west, marked the scene of
conflict to which these persistent warriors repaired. Richard had seen
much of early London that morning. His plans were laid. He had taken
care to ensure his personal liberty against accidents, by leaving his
hotel and his injured uncle Hippias at sunrise. To-day or to-morrow his
father was to arrive. Farmer Blaize, Tom Bakewell reported to him, was
raging in town. Another day and she might be torn from him: but to-day
this miracle of creation would be his, and then from those glittering
banks yonder, let them summon him to surrender her who dared! The
position of things looked so propitious that he naturally thought the
powers waiting on love conspired in his behalf. And she, too--since she
must cross this river, she had sworn to him to be brave, and do him
honour, and wear the true gladness of her heart in her face. Without a
suspicion of folly in his acts, or fear of results, Richard strolled into
Kensington Gardens, breakfasting on the foreshadow of his great joy, now
with a vision of his bride, now of the new life opening to him. Mountain
masses of clouds, rounded in sunlight, swung up the blue. The flowering
chestnut pavilions overhead rustled and hummed. A sound in his ears as
of a banner unfolding in the joyful distance lulled him.