That there
shall be any heroine the historian will not take upon himself to assert;
but if there be a heroine, that heroine shall not be Lady Eustace.
Poor Lizzie Greystock! as men double her own age, and who had known her as
a forward, capricious, spoiled child in her father's lifetime, would still
call her. She did so many things, made so many efforts, caused so much
suffering to others, and suffered so much herself throughout the scenes
with which we are about to deal, that the story can hardly be told without
giving her that prominence of place which has been assigned to her in the
last two chapters.
Nor does the chronicler dare to put forward Lucy Morris as a heroine. The
real heroine, if it be found possible to arrange her drapery for her
becomingly, and to put that part which she enacted into properly heroic
words, shall stalk in among us at some considerably later period in the
narrative, when the writer shall have accustomed himself to the flow of
words, and have worked himself up to a state of mind fit for the reception
of noble acting and noble speaking. In the meantime, let it be understood
that poor little Lucy Morris was a governess in the house of old Lady Fawn
when our beautiful young widow established herself in Mount street.
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