And who is this young widow of yours whom I hear so much about? I understand Lucy's rapture over any stranger; but you, too, mother-" "I too-well, there is no particular witchcraft about it; a nice young woman has as much chance with me as with any one, Ralph-" "Oh, if it's only a nice young woman-" "It's a great deal more," said Lucy. "Why, Miss Jones at the school is a nice young woman-don't you be taken in by mother's old-fashioned stilts. She is a darling-she is as nice as nice can be. She's pretty, and she's good, and she's clever. She has read a lot, and seen a lot, and been everywhere, and knows heaps and heaps of people, and yet just as simple and as nice as if she had{8} never been married, never had a baby, and was just a girl like the rest of us-Mother! there is nothing wrong in what I said?" Lucy suddenly cried, stopping short and blushing all over with the innocent alarm of a youthfulness which had not been trained to modern modes of speech.