requested to take the Bible from the shelf, and read a chapter aloud.
When her aunt went to sleep during the reading Lucy continued steadily,
knowing that the scion of the illustrious house of Whyte would wake
directly her voice ceased.

Occasionally the clergyman would drop in; whereupon Lucy would hear much
improving discourse between her aunt and the reverend gentleman. Mrs.
Rowe poured all her griefs into the ear of the Reverend Horace
Mohun--griefs which she kept from the world. Before Lucy she spoke
freely--being accustomed to regard the timid girl as a child still,
whose mind could not gather the threads of her narrative. Lucy sate--not
listening, but hearing snatches of the mournful circumstances with which
Mrs. Rowe troubled Mr. Mohun. The reverend gentleman was a patient and
an attentive listener; and drank his tea and ate his toast (it was only
at Mrs. Rowe's he said he could ever get a good English round of toast),
shaking his head, or offering a consoling "dear, dear me!" as the
droning proceeded. Lucy was at work. If Mrs. Rowe caught her pausing she
would break her story to say--"If you have finished 42 account, put down
two candles to 10, and a foot-bath to 14." And Lucy--who seldom paused
because she had finished her task, as her aunt knew well--bent over the
table again, and was as content as she was weary. When she went up to
her bedroom (which the cook had peremptorily refused to occupy) she
prayed for good Aunt Rowe every night of her dull life, before she lay
upon her truckle bed to rest for the morrow's cheerful round of hard
duties. Was it likely that a child put thus into the harness of life,
would pass the talk of her aunt with Mr. Mohun as the idle wind?

The mysteries which lay in the talk, and perplexed her, were cleared up
in due time.