that the mirth should be very loud. Such a wound as that
received by Lily Dale was one from which recovery could not be quick,
and it was felt by all the family that a weight was upon them which
made gaiety impracticable. As for Lily herself it may be said that
she bore her misfortune with all a woman's courage. For the first
week she stood up as a tree that stands against the wind, which is
soon to be shivered to pieces because it will not bend. During that
week her mother and sister were frightened by her calmness and
endurance. She would perform her daily task. She would go out through
the village, and appear at her place in church on the first Sunday.
She would sit over her book of an evening, keeping back her tears;
and would chide her mother and sister when she found that they were
regarding her with earnest anxiety.

"Mamma, let it all be as though it had never been," she said.

"Ah, dear! if that were but possible!"

"God forbid that it should be possible inwardly," Lily replied, "but
it is possible outwardly. I feel that you are more tender to me
than you used to be, and that upsets me. If you would only scold me
because I am idle, I should soon be better." But her mother could not
speak to her as she perhaps might have spoken had no grief fallen
upon her pet. She could not cease from those anxious tender glances
which made Lily know that she was looked on as a fawn wounded almost
to death.

At the end of the first week she gave way. "I won't get up, Bell,"
she said one morning, almost petulantly. "I am ill;--I had better
lie here out of the way. Don't make a fuss about it. I'm stupid and
foolish, and that makes me ill."

Thereupon Mrs Dale and Bell were frightened, and looked into each
other's blank faces, remembering stories of poor broken-hearted girls
who had died because their loves had been unfortunate,--as small wax
tapers whose lights are quenched if a breath of wind blows upon then
too strongly. But then Lily was in truth no such slight taper as
that. Nor was she the stem that must be broken because it will not
bend. She bent herself to the blast during that week of illness, and
then arose with her form still straight and graceful, and with her
bright light unquenched.

After that she would talk more openly to her mother about her
loss,--openly and with a true appreciation of the misfortune which
had befallen her; but with an assurance of strength which seemed to
ridicule the idea of a broken