Lucia will go over to-day and stay with him for a while." "Will she?
He says she never comes to see him now." "Indeed, I will," said Lucia, with a little remorse in her tone.

"I will go and read the newspaper straight through to him, from one end to the other." "Poor Lucia! What a sacrifice to friendship," answered Maurice laughing.
"But to reward you, Blackwood arrived last night, and you will find the new chapter of your favourite story." Soon after ten o'clock Lucia put on her hat, and, strong in her good resolutions, went along the lane to Mr.Leigh's.

She lifted the latch rather timidly, and peeped in.

From the tiny entrance she could see into the large square sitting-room, so tidy and so bare, from which the last trace of feminine occupation had passed away three years ago, when Alice Leigh, her old playfellow, died.

There, in his high-backed chair, sat the solitary old man, prematurely old, worn out by labour and sorrow before his time.