"Yes, and at the very time she was saying the words, poor Jack was lying still and cold in his bloody grave," said Cousin Deborah. "You see this battle happened a week ago last Sunday. And your father, whom she threatened so, is safe and well, and the thimble is found. So much for the gipsy's predictions."
"But, cousin, it is very odd about the thimble!" said Lucy, diverted from her letter for a moment. "Where did you find it?"
"Standing on the table beside the box."
"I do not understand it," repeated Lucy. "It certainly was lying there under the aloe-leaves when I went out with you that day."
"Perhaps Robbins picked it up and laid it upon the table," said Cousin Deborah. "He might have done so, and then forgotten all about it, for he grows more and more forgetful all the time. But now, my love, go and write the good news to Aunt Bernard, while I look after poor Anne."
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Lady Lucy's Secret.Great news from the wars.
Lucy's own part of the letter was as follows:—
"DEAR AUNT BERNARD:—This came in a letter from my father last Tuesday, and Cousin Deborah bade me write it out for you. We have got news this day that there has been a great battle, and the English have beat, and my papa is well, only he has got a cut on his face, but poor Jack Martin, Anne's bachelor, is killed. Dear Aunt Bernard, I know I was a naughty girl a great many times, and I hope you will forgive me, as I do you. I hope you will excuse blots, for I cannot help crying when I think about poor Jack Martin and his mother."
"That will do very well!" said Cousin Deborah, when Lucy showed her the letter. "No, you need not copy it. Send it as it is."
So Lucy sent her little letter to Aunt Bernard; but I am sorry to say she never received any answer.
When any one has gone on for many years like this poor, unhappy lady, indulging the passions of anger, pride, and an unforgiving temper, the heart sometimes becomes so hardened that it seems impossible to make any impression upon it. Possibly Mrs. Bernard may have been sorry in her own heart that she had been so cruel to Lucy, but she never said so.
When Anne had a little recovered from her grief at the loss of her sweetheart, Cousin Deborah talked with her seriously about the fault she had committed in helping Lucy to deceive, and in going with her to meet the gipsy-woman. Anne acknowledged her error and promised to do better. And Cousin Deborah took care to avoid all risk, by keeping Lucy with herself till the child had framed the habit of being truthful and open. This was not gained in a day, for bad habits are hard to overcome.
But Lucy was very much in earnest, and under Cousin Deborah's gentle and wise government, she had few temptations to hide her faults and mishaps. By degrees, she lost the frightened, crushed manner which had grown upon her under Aunt Bernard's reign. She grew strong and active in mind and body, and at the end of a year could work in the garden, walk, ride, and run races as well as Polly Burgess herself.
Hannah, who now and then saw her playing with the little girls at the rectory, or going about to see the poor people, reported to her mistress that the child had grown a regular tomboy.
And when Lord Stanton came home at the end of a year, he professed himself perfectly satisfied with the manners and appearance of his daughter, and begged Cousin Deborah to take up her permanent residence at the Court, and continue to superintend Lucy's education. Mrs. Corbet made her arrangements accordingly, and she remained with Lady Lucy till long after she was a married lady, with little ones of her own about her.
Lucy never heard any news of her knife. The gipsies decamped on the very day that the news came of the battle of Blenheim, nor did the same tribe ever visit Stanton-Corbet again.
It turned out as Cousin Deborah had supposed, that old Robbins had picked up the thimble and laid it on the table where Cousin Deborah found it, and, as usual, had forgotten all about it the next minute. Lucy used it every day, and never again forgot to put it in its place.
When Mrs. Bernard died, some years after, Lady Lucy gave old Margery a pretty little cottage and garden, and to wait upon her, a little orphan girl, the child of a fisherman from the cove below. This was the first revival of the Stanton-Corbet almshouses, which had been founded by another little girl, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and of which we may perhaps hear more some day.
Another cottage was inhabited by the Widow Martin, and a third by an old soldier, who had accompanied Lucy's father all through the war, and came home with only one leg, to die in his native village. Lucy found great pleasure in visiting and working for these poor women, and her sewing hours no longer seemed the most tiresome part of the day, when she was making an apron for one, or a Sunday cap and apron for another of her old friends.
THE END.