engagement, and Ned had received the intelligence with grave composure.

"She made a mistake!" he said quietly. "We both made a mistake. I
cannot blame her, for I was in fault myself. What we thought was love,
was but the attraction of youth and good spirits, which could not stand
the strain of adversity. Don't be hard on Lilias, Mrs Rendell. I
should be sorry that she should suffer any more on my account. It has
been a painful experience for her."

But Mrs Rendell closed her lips in a stern silence, and had no word of
pity for her daughter. It shocked her proud heart that one of her girls
should have behaved in a manner so unworthy the precept which she had
endeavoured to teach, for she knew well that Lilias would have felt no
qualms in preparing for her marriage, if Ned's story had been one of
success instead of failure.

What Mrs Rendell thought she was accustomed to say, and Lilias came
away from the important interview smarting with mortification and
wounded vanity. She tried to think that the worst was over; but the
bitterest moment was yet to come, when she met her father--the gentlest
and most forbearing of men, who was so slow to blame that his children
could count the reproofs of a lifetime on the fingers of one hand--and
he looked at her with a strange, cold glance, in which was no trace of
the old fond admiration.

"What's this I hear about you, Lilias?" he asked sternly. "I'm not
proud of you, my dear, not proud at all! I did not think that a
daughter of mine could have behaved in such an unwomanly manner. Your
affection seems good only for fair weather. Talbot is well rid of such
a wife!"

It was not much, and it was the only reference to the broken engagement
which she ever heard from his lips, but it pierced the girl's heart as
no other reproach could have done. The relationship between a father
and a daughter is a very sacred and beautiful one, and the consciousness
of his pride in her, his barely concealed satisfaction in the admiration
she excited, had been one of her most cherished joys. The thought that
her father was ashamed of her made Lilias wince with pain, nor did her
sisters' reception of the news help to restore her composure.

Maud's principle in life was to say nothing, if it were impossible to
say what was agreeable; but Nan made up for this silence by the candour
of her denunciation. The two girls came face to face at the top of the
stairs, an hour after the great n