cret
of her birth, only to be revealed as an extreme necessity. But my
persuasion was that your father would not consent to your alliance with
one so far beneath the expectations he was entitled to form, and the
refusal of that consent would terminate all further acquaintance between
you and Lily, leaving her secret undisclosed. It was not till you had
left, only indeed two days ago, that I received a letter from Walter
Melville,--a letter which told me what I had never before conjectured.
Here is the letter, read it, and then say if you have the heart to
force yourself into rivalry, with--with--" She broke off, choked by her
exertion, thrust the letter into his hands, and with keen, eager, hungry
stare watched his countenance while he read.

----- STREET, BLOOMSBURY.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--Joy and triumph! My picture is completed, the picture
on which for so many months I have worked night and day in this den of
a studio, without a glimpse of the green fields, concealing my address
from every one, even from you, lest I might be tempted to suspend my
labours. The picture is completed: it is sold; guess the price! Fifteen
hundred guineas, and to a dealer,--a dealer! Think of that! It is to be
carried about the country exhibited by itself. You remember those three
little landscapes of mine which two years ago I would gladly have sold
for ten pounds, only neither Lily nor you would let me. My good friend
and earliest patron, the German merchant at Luscombe, who called on
me yesterday, offered to cover them with guineas thrice piled over the
canvas. Imagine how happy I felt when I forced him to accept them as a
present. What a leap in a man's life it is when he can afford to say, "I
give!" Now then, at last, at last I am in a position which justifies the
utterance of the hope which has for eighteen years been my solace, my
support; been the sunbeam that ever shone through the gloom when my fate
was at the darkest; been the melody that buoyed me aloft as in the
song of the skylark, when in the voices of men I heard but the laugh of
scorn. Do you remember the night on which Lily's mother besought us
to bring up her child in ignorance of her parentage, not even to
communicate to unkind and disdainful relatives that such a child was
born? Do you remember how plaintively, and yet how proudly, she, so
nobly born, so luxuriously nurtured, clasping my hand when I ventured
to remonstrate, and say that her own family could no