llection of art
treasures, and, after all, you must remember it is no more closed to us
now than it has been for years past."

"Dear me, no! We can live without the Grange, I hope. Let the poor old
dear shut himself up if he likes. He will be the loser, not we!" cried
Mrs Maitland, laughing. That was the worst of grown-up people! They
were so aggravatingly reasonable and resigned!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

DIOGENES AT THE WINDOW.

After a storm comes a calm. As in Nature, so in the affairs of human
life, and the Rendells found another example of the truth of the old
adage in the month following Lilias's engagement. Nothing seemed to
happen; even the interest which had been taken in the new occupant of
the Grange died away after Mr Rendell's failure to gain admission, and
one day jog--trotted away after another in monotonous fashion.

They were dreary days to Maud, but at the end of even the longest and
dreariest she acknowledged to herself that the battle was not so
hopeless as she had expected. The trouble was there, the difficult
moments arose, the quick stabs of pain following happy memories, but she
herself was strengthened to bear them in a manner which she could not
have believed possible. Maud was one of the sweet, open characters who
are religious by nature; but though she had asked for God's help every
night of her life, she had never been conscious of its presence in such
abundance as in this hour of trial. It almost awed her at times to
realise her own strength, and this testing of the power of faith was a
ray of light shining out of the darkness. Passages from the Bible which
she had known all her life became suddenly instinct with new and
wonderful meaning; the words of Christ went straight home to her sore
heart and comforted it as no earthly power could do. The new communion
had a joy and a sweetness which she had never known before, and her
character grew daily stronger and deeper under the influence of sorrow
nobly borne. Her mother's tenderness, moreover, manifested itself in a
hundred little schemes for her distraction, and Nan's demonstrative
affection heartened her for the fight. The world was not all lost
because Ned had chosen another; and, so far from neglecting her old
duties, Maud worked away more industriously than ever, finding her best
medicine in a busy, occupied life.

Ned Talbot had gone back to the North, whence he could not return for
two months to come, and Lilias se