ke a choice among so many temptations; and still
her mother watched from her corner, the pencil stayed in her busy hands.
The irritation had faded from Mrs Rendell's face, and given place to
an expression of anxious tenderness; for Lilias's indifference to Ned's
letter was but another strengthening of the growing conviction that the
girl's feeling for her lover fell short of what it should rightly be. A
dozen signs, too subtle to be put into words, but none the less
eloquent, had attracted Mrs Rendell's attention within the last few
weeks, and sent a chill to her heart. Above all things it was
imperative that Lilias should love her future husband with all the
strength of which she was capable, for Lilias's mother knew that no
other power but love could develop a selfish nature, and make a noble
woman out of a vain and thoughtless girl. Love has wrought this miracle
before, and will again; and through all her grief for Maud's
disappointment, Mrs Rendell had comforted herself by the reflection
that Lilias was the one of all her children who was most in need of a
softening influence, the one to whom the love of a good man might be
most valuable. Dear, sweet Maud could not be selfish if she tried, but
an early engagement might be the only means of saving Lilias from the
injurious effect of flattering and worldly friends. So the mother had
reasoned with herself; but her arguments would lose all their force if
Lilias herself had no love in her heart for her future husband. A
loveless marriage is a catastrophe for any girl, but for Lilias it would
mean moral suicide: a deliberate settling down into a selfish, self-
seeking life! Was it possible that she had accepted Ned for no higher
motive than a love of excitement, and the puny triumph of making the
first marriage in the family? Mrs Rendell would not judge the girl so
harshly without unmistakable proof, but, her suspicions being aroused,
she could not be content until she grasped the true position of affairs.
A broken engagement was the last thing which she desired to have in her
family, but better that, a thousand times over, than that two lives
should be wrecked for ever!

She waited patiently until, at last, Lilias deigned to read her lover's
letter, watching her face with scrutinising eyes. It was evident that
something in the closely-written sheet did not commend itself to the
girl's approval; for as she read the white forehead grew fretted with
lines, and the