kins spoke to him on the subject,
he sharply desired that faithful gardener to hold his tongue, giving
it to be understood that such things were not to be made matter
of talk by the Allington dependants till they had been officially
announced. With Bell during these visits he never alluded to the
matter. She was the chief sinner, in that she had refused to marry
her cousin, and had declined even to listen to rational counsel upon
the matter. But the squire felt that he could not discuss the subject
with her, seeing that he had been specially informed by Mrs Dale that
his interference would not be permitted; and then he was perhaps
aware that if he did discuss the subject with Bell, he would not gain
much by such discussion. Their conversation, therefore, generally
fell upon Crosbie, and the tone in which he was mentioned in the
Great House was very different from that assumed in Lily's presence.

"He'll be a wretched man," said the squire, when he told Bell of the
day that had been fixed.

"I don't want him to be wretched," said Bell. "But I can hardly think
that he can act as he has done without being punished."

"He will be a wretched man. He gets no fortune with her, and she will
expect everything that fortune can give. I believe, too, that she
is older than he is. I cannot understand it. Upon my word, I cannot
understand how a man can be such a knave and such a fool. Give my
love to Lily. I'll see her to-morrow or the next day. She's well rid
of him; I'm sure of that;--though I suppose it would not do to tell
her so."

The morning of the fourteenth came upon them at the Small House,
as comes the morning of those special days which have been long
considered, and which are to be long remembered. It brought with it a
hard, bitter frost,--a black, biting frost,--such a frost as breaks
the water-pipes, and binds the ground to the hardness of granite.
Lily, queen as she was, had not yet been allowed to go back to her
own chamber, but occupied the larger bed in her mother's room, her
mother sleeping on a smaller one.

"Mamma," she said, "how cold they'll be!" Her mother had announced to
her the fact of the black frost, and these were the first words she
spoke.

"I fear their hearts will be cold also," said Mrs Dale. She ought not
to have said so. She was transgressing the acknowledged rule of the
house in saying any word that could be construed as being inimical to
Crosbie or his bride. But her feeling on the matte