Belgravia (Volume 66-67) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1888 Excerpt: ... fjc 2Macft&aH l)o0t . BY SARAH TYTLER. Author of 'Citoyenne Jacqueline, ' 'Saint Mmujo's City' fa. Chapter XXVII. THE TONY-DRIPT--AN AUSTERE YOUNG VICAR. In fact, Lucy had not got rid of her undesirable obligations; she had only shifted them, and they haunted her persistently. If she could but have forgotten them, she might have been tolerably at ease again, particularly after Celia had assured her that Jem was only crying' wolf' with regard to his circumstances, that they were no worse than they had been nearly two years before. There seemed a perversity about Lucy's long memory in this matter; for though she did not like Tony North any better than she had ever liked him--rather, if possible, shrank more from him--she could not in fairness say that he had, as yet, taken any mean advantage of the relation of debtor and creditor, in which they now stood to each other. But she had ceased to feel that the relation was rendered quite light and tolerable because she had merely borrowed a sum of money that in his eyes and Celia's was a trifle. When she thought the matter over for herself, she could not agree with them in their arithmetical philosophy. What did it signify whether the amount of her debt were five or five hundred pounds, when she could no more pay the smaller than the larger figure? Certainly there was more possibility of Jem's intervention to discharge the five than the five hundred. But she had not begun to see any opening in the cloud of adversity which hung over Blackhall, that could give her courage to confess and appeal to Jem, while she lived in the vague, yet earnest, hope of such an opening occurring. She could not endure to think that she was to continue always in Tony North's debt, even for so paltry a sum as five pounds. Lucy w...