looked at her with a mingling of exasperation and relief--
relief that she should be so ignorant of Maud's feelings, exasperation
that it should be possible for one sister to be so oblivious to the
sufferings of another. She could not but realise also that Lilias would
prefer a week of gaiety at Richmond to a visit from Ned Talbot; and her
distress at the thought made her voice sound somewhat sharp as she
replied--

"There is some one else to be considered besides yourself, my dear. You
forget that your father and I would prefer to see Ned at once, and would
not approve of postponing his visit. It is you, and not Maud, whom he
comes to see; and you would surely not choose to spend the time in
frivolity which might be given to helping and comforting the man you
have promised to marry?"

"No--no, of course not, mother!" cried Lilias, shocked once more at the
suggestion of her own selfishness. "I'll write at once, and say that
the twentieth will suit us all." She gathered her letters together as
she spoke, and rose to leave the room, holding her head well in the air,
and keeping up an appearance of composure so long as she was in her
mother's sight, but once outside the door the tears of disappointment
rushed to her eyes, and she brought down her foot on the floor with a
stamp of irritation. She felt jarred and disappointed, and thoroughly
ill-used into the bargain. Only two months engaged, and already
involved in trouble and anxiety, and expected to give up her own
pleasure in order to condole with a dejected lover! She had imagined
that it would be Ned's place to console her; and if his fears should
prove well founded, surely it would be she who needed consolation in the
prospect of a long, uncertain engagement. Lilias had known one or two
girls who had waited year after year while their _fiances_ struggled
against adverse circumstances, and she was by no means anxious to follow
their example. They lost their beauty, and grew thin and pale; people
spoke of them with expressions of commiseration; the subject of marriage
was studiously avoided in their presence. Lilias grew hot at the
thought that any one might possibly regard her in such a fashion. When
she had become engaged to Ned Talbot, the future had appeared _couleur
de rose_, and she had sunned herself in the prospect of increased
importance at home, and the honour which would be paid to the beautiful
young bride by her husband's friends and relatives