ham! Then, swiftly, the cloud passed, and she laughed
at herself.

"Take care of her! You will be the happiest people in the world--save
two!"

He let her talk to him, the inner agitation whatever it was,
disappearing. She soothed, she steadied him. Now, at last, they were to
be true friends--comrades in the tasks and difficulties of life. Without
words, her heart promised it--to him and Felicia.

As they left the room, she pointed, smiling, to the drawings.

"So you were the elderly solicitor, with a taste for art, I used to see
in my dreams!"

His eyes lit up boyishly.

"I had to keep them here, for fear you'd find out. Now, we'll hang them
properly."

It was Victoria who broke the news to Netta Melrose. She, a little wasted
ghost among her pillows, received it calmly; yet with a certain
bitterness mingled in the calm. What did the money matter to her? And
what had she to do with this English world, and this young lord Felicia
was to marry? Far within, she hungered, on the threshold of death, as she
had hungered twenty years before, for the Italian sun, and the old
Italian streets, with the deep eaves and the sculptured doorways, and the
smells of leather and macaroni. Her father had loved them, and she had
loved her father; all the more passionately the more the world disowned
him. She sat in spirit beside his crushed and miserable old age, finding
her only comfort in the memory of how his feeble hands had clung to her,
how she had worked and starved for him.

Yet, when Felicia came to her, she cried and blessed her. And Felicia,
softened by happiness, knelt down beside her, and begged and prayed her
to get well. To please them all, Netta made her nurse do her hair, and
put on a white jacket which Victoria had embroidered for her. And when
Tatham came in to see her, she would have timidly kissed his hand had he
not been so quick to see and prevent her.

Meanwhile Victoria, still conscious of the clinging of Felicia's arms
about her, was comparing--secretly and inevitably--the daughter-in-law
that might have been, with the daughter-in-law that was to be. Now
that Fate's throw was irrevocably made, she found herself appreciating
Lydia as she had never done while the chances were still open. Lydia
had refused her Harry; Felicia had captured him. Perhaps she resented
both actions; and would always--secretly--resent them. But yet, in
Lydia--Lydia with her early maturity, her sweet poise and strength of
nature,