u Edward still? Oh, dear Edward, do make allowance for me. Write
kindly to me. Say you forgive me. I feel like a ghost to-day. My life
seems quite behind me somewhere, and I hardly feel anything I touch.
I declare to you, dearest one, I had no idea my sister was here. I was
surprised when I heard her name mentioned by my landlady, and looked on
the bed; suddenly my strength was gone, and it changed all that I was
thinking. I never knew before that women were so weak, but now I see
they are, and I only know I am at my Edward's mercy, and am stupid! Oh,
so wretched and stupid. I shall not touch food till I hear from you. Oh,
if, you are angry, write so; but do write. My suspense would make you
pity me. I know I deserve your anger. It was not that I do not trust
you, Edward. My mother in heaven sees my heart and that I trust, I trust
my heart and everything I am and have to you. I would almost wish and
wait to see you to-day in the Gardens, but my crying has made me such
a streaked thing to look at. If I had rubbed my face with a
scrubbing-brush, I could not look worse, and I cannot risk your seeing
me. It would excuse you for hating me. Do you? Does he hate her? She
loves you. She would die for you, dear Edward. Oh! I feel that if I was
told to-day that I should die for you to-morrow, it would be happiness.
I am dying--yes, I am dying till I hear from you.

"Believe me,

"Your tender, loving, broken-hearted,

"Dahlia."

There was a postscript:--

"May I still go to lessons?"

Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye. He had winced
triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps,
but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have
used.

"The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don't write to her," he
said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding--"Go to
lessons, by all means."

Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing
the rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will
find if you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits
contesting, and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages,
personal, or of the artist's, the winner owes the victory. Dahlia had
been admirably dealt with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness
without rusticity was visible in her face and figure. Hanging there on
the wall, she was a match for Mr