e gray flowers! There is no contrast
in such an arrangement. Watch the difference which a glowing
pomegranate blossom or a scarlet verbena will make."

"You do not like such quiet harmony?" said Lionel, smiling, thinking
how characteristic the little incident was.

"No," she replied; "give me striking contrasts. For many years the web
of my life was gray-colored, and I longed for a dash of scarlet in its
threads."

"You have it now," said Mr. Dacre, quietly.

"Yes," she said, as she turned her beautiful, bright fact to him; "I
have it now, never to lose it again."

Lord Airlie, looking on and listening, drinking in every word that fell
from her lips, wondered whether love was the scarlet thread interwoven
with her life. He sighed deeply as he said to himself that it would
not be; this brilliant girl could never care for him. Beatrice heard
the sigh and turned to him.

"Does your taste resemble mine, Lord Airlie?"

"I," interrupted Lord Airlie--"I like whatever you like, Miss Earle."

"Yourself best of all," whispered Lionel to Beatrice with a smile.

* * * * *

As Mr. Dacre walked home that evening, he thought long and anxiously
about the two young girls, his kins-women. What was the mystery? he
asked himself--what skeleton was locked away in the gay mansion? Where
was Lord Earle's wife--the lady who ought to have been at the head of
his table--the mother of his children? Where was she? Why was her
place empty? Why was her husband's face shadowed and lined with care?

"Lillian Earle is the fairest and sweetest girl I have ever met," he
said to himself. "I know there is danger for me in those sweet, true
eyes, but if there be anything wrong--if the mother is blameworthy--I
will fly from the danger. I believe in hereditary virtue and in
hereditary vice. Before I fall in love with Lillian, I must know her
mother's story."

So he said, and he meant it. There was no means of arriving at the
knowledge. The girls spoke at times of their mother, and it was always
with deep love and respect. Lady Helena mentioned her, but her name
never passed the lips of Lord Earle. Lionel Dacre saw no way of
obtaining information in the matter.

There was no concealment as to Dora's abode. Once, by special
privilege, he was invited into the pretty room where the ladies sat in
the morning--a cozy, cheerful room, into which visitors never
penetrated. There, upon the wall, he saw a pict