ecognise it.
Even mother was sure it was you: every one was, except Lilias."

Maud gave a quick glance upward.

"Did Lilias guess? Did she know that this was coming?"

"I have not seen her; but from what mother said, I imagine she did."

"And she will--she cares for him too?"

"Yes!"

It was a very low little yes, almost a whisper, but at the sound of it
Maud shrank as at a blow, and her face became drawn with pain. For the
first time a realisation of what the news meant, broke upon her, and she
cried aloud in a voice sharp with misery--

"They will be engaged; they will be married; and I shall have to stay at
home and look on! I shall have to take part, and pretend that I don't
care. Oh, I can't--I can't do it! If it had been some one at a
distance, some one I need never have seen, I could have borne it; but my
own sister, living in the same house together all day long--that is too
bitter! I'd rather die than face it!"

"Then I'll die too!" cried Nan hotly. "Whether Ned cares for you or
not, you are all the world to me. You don't know how I love you, Maud!
It would have broken my heart if you had married and gone away, and I
never want to marry myself, if you and I can live together. No man
could make up for you. I hate them all! Wretches! Nothing but misery
wherever they come. I'll never fall in love, and you'll get over this
in a few months, and we will look forward to having our own little
house, and growing old together,--won't we, darling?"

"Yes, we will," assented Maud meekly. She looked at her sister and
tried hard to smile; but the prospect seemed so dull--oh, so heart-
breakingly dull!--after the rosy dreams of the past, that what was meant
as comfort proved, after all, the last strain which was to break down
her composure.

She threw up her hands to her face, and rocked to and fro in an
abandonment of distress.

"Oh--oh, the days, and weeks, and months! They will be so long; I can't
realise it yet, but I know how I shall suffer. Oh, Nan, isn't it hard,
after being so happy--after feeling so sure? I never had a doubt all
these years except just this last week, and then I thought it was my own
foolish imagining;--and now to have it end like this! I can't believe
it! Are you sure, are you quite sure? It seems like a hideous
mistake!"

Nan shook her head, and her face hardened.

"There's no mistake on my part, but there's one on his, and a big one
too. He'll find it out, tha