tions, all the way,
insatiably.

Mrs. Penfold, on her side, could do little but stare at "the heiress of
Threlfall." Susy, studying her with shining eyes, tried to make her talk,
to little purpose.

But Lydia in particular could get nothing out of her. It seemed to her
that Felicia looked at her as though she disliked her. And every now and
then the small stranger would try to see herself in the only mirror that
the cottage drawing-room afforded; lengthening out her long, thin neck,
and turning her curly head stealthily from side to side like a swan
preening. Once, when she thought no one was observing her, she took a
carnation from a vase near her--it had been sent over from Duddon that
morning!--and put it in her dress. And the next moment, having pulled off
her glove, she looked with annoyance at her own roughened hand, and then
at Lydia's delicate fingers playing with a paper-knife. Frowning, she
hastily slipped her glove on again.

As soon as Tatham and his mother reappeared, she jumped up with alacrity,
a smile breaking with sudden and sparkled beauty on her pinched face, and
went to stand by Victoria's side, looking up at her with eager docility
and admiration.

Victoria, however, left her, in order to draw Lydia into a corner beside
a farther window.

"I am sorry to say Harry has received a very unsatisfactory letter from
Mr. Faversham."

"May I ask him about it?"

"He wants to tell you. I am carrying Miss Melrose back with me. But Harry
will stay."

Words which cost Victoria a good deal. If what she now believed was the
truth, how monstrous that her Harry should be kept dangling here! Her
pride was all on edge. But Harry ruled her. She could make no move till
his eyes too were opened.

Meanwhile, on all counts, Faversham was the enemy. To that _chasse_ first
and foremost, Victoria vowed herself.

* * * * *

"Well, what do you think of her?" said Tatham, good-humouredly, as he
raised his hat to Felicia and his mother disappearing in the car. "She's
more alive to-day; but you can see she has been literally starved. That
_brute_ Melrose!"

Lydia made some half audible reply, and with a view to prolonging his
_tete-a-tete_ with her, he led her strolling along the road, through a
golden dusk, touched with moonrise. She followed, but all her pleasant
self-confidence with regard to him was gone; she walked beside him,
miserable and self-condemned; a theorist defeated by