Every one remarked a change in me. Lucy looked at me anxiously sometimes, and asked me if I was not ill. Tom Lawton grieved to see me so dejected, till he became himself as grave as an old man. I sat opposite to Lucy sometimes, with a book in my hand. I had ceased to read aloud; and she seeing that I took no pleasure in it, did not press me to do so. I looked at the pages, without a thought of their contents, simply to avoid her looks. I thought, at last, that she grew vexed with my neglect. One night I suddenly threw down my book, and looking at her boldly and intently, to observe the expression of her features, I said,
"I have been thinking, Lucy, that you grow weary of my dull ways. You do not love me now, as you did some months ago."
"Oh, yes!" she replied, "indeed I do. I do not know what makes you talk like this, unless I have offended you in something. But I see it now," she said. "I must have said something that has given you pain; though it was never in my thought to do so. And this is why you treat me coldly, day by day, and never let me know what I have done."
She came over to me, and took my hand in hers; and, with tears in her eyes, begged me to tell her what it was.
"I know," she said, "I have no friend more kind and good than you. My father died before I knew how great a friend I had in him; but, had he lived, I never could have loved him more than I love you."
"Well, well, Lucy," said I, "I did not mean to hurt you. I know not why I reproached you. I am not well; and when I feel thus, I know not what I say."
"Kiss me, then," said she, "and tell me you are not angry with me; and do not think now, that I am tired of living here with you. I will do every thing to make you happy. I will not ask you to read. I will put away my work and read to you in future. I have seen you silent, looking unhappy, and have said nothing--thinking that was best, as I did not know what it was that made you so; and you have thought, perhaps, that I was vexed with you, and wished to show it by a sullen air. But now I will strive to make you cheerful. I will read and sing to you, and we will play at draughts, sometimes, as we used to do. Indeed, I like this old place, and all that live in it, and never was so happy in my life as I have been since I came here."