Particularly was she grieved that she should have
harbored a feeling of bitterness toward Lucy Harcourt, who was not to
blame for having won the love she had been foolish enough to covet.
"He knew her first," she said, "and if he has since been pleased with
me, the sight of her has won him back to his allegiance, and it is
right. She is a pretty creature, but strangely unsuited, I fear, to be
his wife," and then, as she remembered Lucy's wish to go with her when
next she visited the poor, she said:
"I will take her to see the Widow Hobbs. That will give her some idea
of the duties which will devolve upon her as a rector's wife. I can go
directly there from Prospect Hill, where, I suppose, I must call with
Aunt Meredith."
Anna made herself believe that in doing this she was acting only from
a magnanimous desire to fit Lucy for her work, if, indeed, she was to
be Arthur's wife--that in taking the mantle from her own shoulders,
and wrapping it around her rival, she was doing a most amiable deed,
when down in her inmost heart, where the tempter had put it, there was
an unrecognized wish to see how the little dainty girl would shrink
from the miserable abode, and recoil from the touch of the little,
dirty hands which were sure to be laid upon her dress if the children
were at home, and she waited a little impatiently to start on her
errand of mercy.
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