id fancy, a rare
and graceful imagination; and perhaps her grandest gift was a strong
and deep love for things not of this world. Not that Lillian was given
to "preaching," or being disagreeably "goody," but high and holy
thoughts came naturally to her. When Lord Earle wanted amusement, he
sent for Beatrice--no one could while away long hours as she could;
when he wanted comfort, advice, or sympathy, he sought Lillian. Every
one loved her, much as one loves the sunbeams that bring bright light
and warmth.

Lionel Dacre loved her best of all. His only wonder was that any one
could even look at Beatrice when Lillian was near. He wondered
sometimes whether she had not been made expressly for him--she was so
strong where he was weak, her calm serene patience controlled his
impetuosity, her gentle thoughtfulness balanced his recklessness, her
sweet, graceful humility corrected his pride.

She influenced him more than he knew--one word from her did wonders
with him. He loved her for her fair beauty, but most of all for the
pure, guileless heart that knew no shadow of evil upon which the world
had never even breathed.

Lionel Dacre had peculiar ideas about women. His mother, who had been
a belle in her day, was essentially worldly. The only lessons she had
ever taught him were how to keep up appearance, how to study
fashionable life and keep pace with it.

She had been a lady of fashion, struggling always with narrow means;
and there were times when her son's heart grew sick, remembering the
falseness, the meanness, the petty cunning maneuvers she had been
obliged to practice.

As he grew older and began to look around the world, he was not
favorably impressed. The ladies of his mother's circle were all
striving together to get the foremost place. He heard of envy,
jealousy, scandal, untruth, until he wondered if all women were alike.

He himself was of a singularly truthful, honorable nature--all deceit,
all false appearances were hateful to him. He had formed to himself an
ideal of a wife, and he resolved to live and die unmarried unless he
could find some one to realize it.

Lillian Earle did. He watched her keenly; she was truthful and open as
the day. He never heard a false word from her not even one of the
trifling excuses that pass current in society for truth. He said to
himself, if any one was all but perfect, surely she was. To use his
own expression, he let his heart's desire rest in her; al