her granddaughter under excellent control. Under her rigorous rule, the
girl--whose mother had died at her birth--had been brought up. At
nineteen she was simple, sensitive, shy. She had been permitted to have
no companions, and the greatest excitements of her life had been the
Slowbridge tea-parties. Of the late Sir Gilbert Theobald, the less said
the better. He had spent very little of his married life at Oldclough
Hall, and upon his death his widow had found herself possessed of a
substantial, gloomy mansion, an exalted position in Slowbridge society,
and a small marriage-settlement, upon which she might make all the
efforts she chose to sustain her state. So Lucia wore her dresses a much
longer time than any other Slowbridge young lady: she was obliged to mend
her little gloves again and again; and her hats were retrimmed so often
that even Slowbridge thought them old-fashioned. But she was too simple
and sweet-natured to be much troubled, and indeed thought very little
about the matter. She was only troubled when Lady Theobald scolded her,
which was by no means infrequently. Perhaps the straits to which, at
times, her ladyship was put to maintain her dignity imbittered her
somewhat.

"Lucia is neither a Theobald nor a Barold," she had been heard to say
once, and she had said it with much rigor.

A subject of much conversation in private circles had been Lucia's
future. It had been discussed in whispers since her seventeenth year, but
no one had seemed to approach any solution of the difficulty. Upon the
subject of her plans for her granddaughter, Lady Theobald had preserved
stern silence. Once, and once only, she had allowed herself to be
betrayed into the expression of a sentiment connected with the matter.

"If Miss Lucia marries"--a matron of reckless proclivities had remarked.