over that baby in the joy of his heart, poor man! he cried, he did.  You should see that Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth—­a friend o’ Mr. Richard’s, and a very modest-minded young gentleman—­he worships her in his innocence.  It’s a sight to see him with that baby.  My belief is he’s unhappy ’cause he can’t anyways be nurse-maid to him.  O Mr. Wentworth! what do you think of her, sir?”

Austin’s reply was as satisfactory as a man’s poor speech could make it.  He heard that Lady Feverel was in the house, and Mrs. Berry prepared the way for him to pay his respects to her.  Then Mrs. Berry ran to Lucy, and the house buzzed with new life.  The simple creatures felt in Austin’s presence something good among them.  “He don’t speak much,” said Mrs. Berry, “but I see by his eye he mean a deal.  He ain’t one o’ yer long-word gentry, who’s all gay deceivers, every one of ’em.”

Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast.  “I wonder what he thinks of me, Mrs. Berry?  I could not speak to him.  I loved him before I saw him.  I knew what his face was like.”

“He looks proper even with a beard, and that’s a trial for a virtuous man,” said Mrs. Berry.  “One sees straight through the hair with him.  Think! he’ll think what any man’d think—­you a-suckin spite o’ all your sorrow, my sweet,—­and my Berry talkin’ of his Roman matrons!—­here’s a English wife’ll match ’em all! that’s what he thinks.  And now that leetle dark under yer eye’ll clear, my darlin’, now he’ve come.”

Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that; Lucy to no more than the peace she had in being near Richard’s best friend.  When she sat down to tea it was with a sense that the little room that held her was her home perhaps for many a day.

A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed Austin’s dinner.  During the meal he entertained them with anecdotes of his travels.  Poor Lucy had no temptation to try to conquer Austin.  That heroic weakness of hers was gone.

Mrs. Berry had said:  “Three cups—­I goes no further,” and Lucy had rejected the proffer of more tea, when Austin, who was in the thick of a Brazilian forest, asked her if she was a good traveller.

“I mean, can you start at a minute’s notice?”

Lucy hesitated, and then said; “Yes,” decisively, to which Mrs. Berry added, that she was not a “luggage-woman”

“There used to be a train at seven o’clock,” Austin remarked, consulting his watch.

The two women were silent.

“Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham in ten minutes?”

Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question.

Lucy’s lips parted to speak.  She could not answer.

Loud rattled the teaboard to Mrs. Berry’s dropping hands.

“Joy and deliverance!” she exclaimed with a foundering voice.

“Will you come?” Austin kindly asked again.

Lucy tried to stop her beating heart, as she answered, “Yes.”  Mrs. Berry cunningly pretended to interpret the irresolution in her tones with a mighty whisper:  “She’s thinking what’s to be done with baby.”