in these days of illness such
dinners as were provided were eaten early. Bell, therefore, knew that
she had still some half-hour of her own, during which she might sit
and think undisturbed.

And what naturally should have been her first thoughts? That she had
ruthlessly refused a man who, as she now knew, loved her well, and
for whom she had always felt at any rate the warmest friendship? Such
were not her thoughts, nor were they in any way akin to this. They
ran back instantly to years gone by,--over long years, as her few
years were counted, and settled themselves on certain halcyon days,
in which she had dreamed that he had loved her, and had fancied
that she had loved him. How she had schooled herself for those days
since that, and taught herself to know that her thoughts had been
over-bold! And now it had all come round. The only man that she
had ever liked had loved her. Then there came to her a memory of a
certain day, in which she had been almost proud to think that Crosbie
had admired her, in which she had almost hoped that it might be so;
and as she thought of this she blushed, and struck her foot twice
upon the floor. "Dear Lily," she said to herself--"poor Lily!" But
the feeling which induced her then to think of her sister had had no
relation to that which had first brought Crosbie into her mind.

And this man had loved her through it all,--this priceless, peerless
man,--this man who was as true to the backbone as that other man had
shown himself to be false; who was as sound as the other man had
proved himself to be rotten. A smile came across her face as she sat
looking at the fire, thinking of this. A man had loved her, whose
love was worth possessing. She hardly remembered whether or no she
had refused him or accepted him. She hardly asked herself what she
would do. As to all that it was necessary that she should have many
thoughts, but the necessity did not press upon her quite immediately.
For the present, at any rate, she might sit and triumph;--and thus
triumphant she sat there till the old nurse came in and told her that
her mother was waiting for her below.

CHAPTER XL

Preparations for the Wedding

The fourteenth of February was finally settled as the day on which
Mr Crosbie was to be made the happiest of men. A later day had been
at first named, the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth having been
suggested as an improvement over the first week in March; but Lady
Amelia had been frigh