صفحة 586 من 1118

"I want you to do me a great favour; many are ready to obey me,

but there is none but yourself whom I can trust. I must speak

immediately on an affair of great importance, which I will relate

to you some other time, to the superior of the capuchins, who

brought you hither, my dear Lucy; but no one must know that I

have sent for him. I rely on you to carry a secret message--"

Lucy was astonished at such a request, and alleged her reasons

for declining to perform it; without her mother! without a

companion! in a solitary road! in a strange country! But

Gertrude, instructed in an infernal school, showed great

astonishment and displeasure at her refusal, after having been

loaded with so many benefits; she affected to treat her excuses

as frivolous. "In open day! a short distance! a road that Lucy

had travelled a few days before!" She said so much, that the poor

girl, touched with gratitude and shame, enquired, "What was to be

done?"