"O Mrs. Berry! dear kind Mrs. Berry! have you no news? nothing to tell
me! I've borne it so long. They're cruel to me, Mrs. Berry. Oh, do you
know if I have offended him--my husband? While he wrote I did not
complain. I could live on his letters for years. But not to hear from
him! To think I have ruined him, and that he repents! Do they want to
take him from me? Do they want me dead? O Mrs. Berry! I've had no one
to speak out my heart to all this time, and I cannot, cannot help crying,
Mrs. Berry!"

Mrs. Berry was inclined to be miserable at what she heard from Lucy's
lips, and she was herself full of dire apprehension; but it was never
this excellent creature's system to be miserable in company. The sight
of a sorrow that was not positive, and could not refer to proof, set her
resolutely the other way.

"Fiddle-faddle," she said. "I'd like to see him repent! He won't find
anywheres a beauty like his own dear little wife, and he know it. Now,
look you here, my dear--you blessed weepin' pet--the man that could see
ye with that hair of yours there in ruins, and he backed by the law, and
not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed for life, he ain't got much
man in him, I say; and no one can say that of my babe! I was sayin',
look here, to comfort ye--oh, why, to be sure he've got some surprise for
ye. And so've I, my lamb! Hark, now! His father've come to town, like
a good reasonable man at last, to u-nite ye both, and bring your bodies
together, as your hearts is, for everlastin'. Now ain't that news?"

"Oh!" cried Lucy, "that takes my last hope away. I thought he had gone
to his father." She burst into fresh tears.

Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed.