"And yet," said the honest dame, "if I had followed my fancy, and taken up
with my first love, it would not ha' been with _he_, Lucy. I had a sort of
a fancy (since my lady's so good as to let me speak), I had a sort of a
fancy for an idle young man; but he, very luckily for me, took it into his
head to fall in love with another young woman, and then I had leisure
enough left me to think of your grandfather, who was not so much to my
taste like at first. But when I found out his goodness and cleverness, and
joined to all, his great tenderness for me, I thought better of it, Lucy
(as who knows but you may do, though there shall not be a word said on my
part to press you, for poor Jackson?); and my thinking better is the cause
why I have been so happy ever since, and am so still in my old age. Ah,
Lucy! dear, what a many years that same old age lasts, after all! But
young folks, for the most part, never think what's to come after thirty or
forty at farthest. But I don't say this for you, Lucy; for you are a good
girl, and a sensible girl, though my own grand-daughter, as I said before,
and therefore won't be run away with by fancy, which is soon past and
gone: but make a prudent choice, that you won't never have cause to repent
of. But I'll not say a word more; I'll leave it all to yourself and James
Jackson."

"You do right," said Lady Anne: "good morning to you! Farewell, Lucy!
That's a pretty necklace, and is very becoming to you--fare ye well!"

She hurried out of the cottage with Belinda, apprehensive that the
talkative old dame might weaken the effect of her good sense and
experience by a farther profusion of words.

"One would think," said Belinda, with an ingenuous smile, "that this
lesson upon the dangers of _fancy_ was intended for me: at any rate, I may
turn it to my own advantage!"