wn the path.

Shortly before Christmas Day she called with her sister at the
vicarage. Bell, in the course of the visit, left the room with one of
the Boyce girls, to look at the last chrysanthemums of the year. Then
Mrs Boyce took advantage of the occasion to make her little speech.
"My dear Lily," she said, "you will think me cold if I do not say one
word to you." "No, I shall not," said Lily, almost sharply, shrinking
from the finger that threatened to touch her sore. "There are things
which should never be talked about." "Well, well; perhaps so," said
Mrs Boyce. But for a minute or two she was unable to fall back upon
any other topic, and sat looking at Lily with painful tenderness. I
need hardly say what were Lily's sufferings under such a gaze; but
she bore it, acknowledging to herself in her misery that the fault
did not lie with Mrs Boyce. How could Mrs Boyce have looked at her
otherwise than tenderly?

It was settled, then, that Lily was to dine up at the Great House on
Christmas Day, and thus show to the Allington world that she was not
to be regarded as a person shut out from the world by the depth of
her misfortune. That she was right there can, I think, be no doubt;
but as she walked across the little bridge, with her mother and
sister, after returning from church, she would have given much to be
able to have turned round, and have gone to bed instead of to her
uncle's dinner.

CHAPTER XXXII

Pawkins's in Jermyn Street

The show of fat beasts in London took place this year on the
twentieth day of December, and I have always understood that a
certain bullock exhibited by Lord De Guest was declared by the
metropolitan butchers to have realised all the possible excellences
of breeding, feeding, and condition. No doubt the butchers of the
next half-century will have learned much better, and the Guestwick
beast, could it be embalmed and then produced, would excite only
ridicule at the agricultural ignorance of the present age; but Lord
De Guest took the praise that was offered to him, and found himself
in a seventh heaven of delight. He was never so happy as when
surrounded by butchers, graziers, and salesmen who were able to
appreciate the work of his life, and who regarded him as a model
nobleman. "Look at that fellow," he said to Eames, pointing to the
prize bullock. Eames had joined his patron at the show after his
office hours, looking on upon the living beef by gaslight. "Isn't he
like his