time, and she, who had
never known the want of money, took the deepest interest in it all.

He seemed never able to bear her out of his sight. If she played, he
was hanging over the piano; if he had letters to write, Cecil must do
it from his dictation; and yet he would avow sometimes before her such
extravagant adoration for some pretty girl, that Cecil, chilled and
surprised, would feel more than ever doubtful of her own influence;
and the honeyed words she had treasured up, faded away as void of
significance. And then one day,--suddenly,--on her return from a
croquet-party, she heard he had received a telegram, and gone, leaving
a careless message of adieu.

Poor Cecil! with the instinct of the wounded animal to its lair, she
rushed to her own room, locked the door, and walked about in a tearless
abandonment of grief, disappointment, and surprise. How could he leave
her without one word? She felt half stunned, and her brain seemed capable
of only the dull reiteration that "Bertie was gone." Tears welled up to
her eyes then, when the sound of the first dinner-bell drove them back.
She felt she must battle alone with this strange affliction; and trying
to efface from her features all evidence of the shock she had sustained,
descended to dinner, looking rather more stately than usual.

It annoyed her to observe that her step-mother glanced deprecatingly at
her, and was inclined to be extra affectionate. This would never do. Like
most young girls, she was generally rather silent when not interested in
the discussions of her elders. But now she never let conversation drop.
The incidents of the croquet-party furnished a safe topic. Colonel
Rolleston thought the gentle dissipation had made his daughter quite
lively. Afterwards she took refuge at the piano, which was imprudent, for
music only too surely touches the chord of feeling, and every piece was
associated with Bertie. Cecil shut the instrument, and effected a
strategical retreat to her bed-room, where, in the luxury of solitude,
she might worry and torment herself to her heart's content. His absence
was trial enough, but the sting lay in the way it was done, which was
such a proof of indifference, that shame urged her to crush out all
thoughts of him, and suffer anything rather than let him see the
impression his careless affection had made on her.

And so Cecil passed through her first "baptism of fire" alone and
unsuspected; but time had softened much of her re