ome face that bent over
her and wondered if it was of this stately lady that she was to beware,
for the half-uttered words of the stranger had impressed her strangely,
and the one thought, that there was to be for her a hidden enemy within
these walls, had appeared to haunt her very footsteps ever since she
entered Randolph Abbey. Sir Michael approached, and Lady Randolph at
once let fall the little hand that fluttered in her own. Lilias timidly
advanced towards her uncle; involuntarily he put his arm round her, and
stroked down the soft brown hair: "Poor Edward," he murmured, "how
wonderfully you resemble him."

"Then you will love me for his sake, will you not?" and she looked
coaxingly up to him.

"Dear child, would that you could be like what he was, to me, the only
creature who ever loved me."

"And now I will be another; only let me try to take his place." She put
her arms round his neck and nestled close to him, till the old man felt,
as it were, the warmth of a new life creep into his breast from the
beating of the pure young heart beside him. He pressed her fondly to
him; it was so long since any one had seemed to consider him as a being
for whom it was possible to feel the least affection, that her gentle
words were strangely soothing to him. Suddenly she started in his arms,
for the door was closed with great violence; it was Lady Randolph, who
had left the room, and she wondered at the strange gleam of pleasure
which lit up the livid face of her uncle. Unconsciously she shrunk from
him as from something evil; but little indeed could that innocent mind
conceive of the feeling which made him exalt in having thus drawn forth
an indication of jealous anger from the wife who so long had crushed him
with her cold contempt. Lilias remained with her uncle, and told him the
brief history of her untroubled life; all things connected with her
seemed gentle, pure, and happy, even where images of death forced their
way amongst them. He listened as to some melodious poem, whilst she told
him of her mother, the sweet Irish girl, who had lured his brother
Edward, in early youth, from all the grandeur of Randolph Abbey, to come
and dwell with her among the Connaught hills; and how, as Lilias had
heard from her old nurse, they had been the fairest couple ever seen,
living for one another only, and thinking earth a paradise, because they
walked upon it hand in hand.

"And then, dear uncle," continued Lilias, "it seemed as