ked down at Lilias, who felt
as if the deeply mournful eyes sent a chill to her very soul. Then the
mouth relaxed to an expression of indescribable sweetness, which gave,
for one second, a touching beauty to the rigid face; a few words,
gentle, but without the slightest warmth, passed from her pale lips.
Then they closed as if in deep weariness. She let fall the hand of
Lilias, and glided back to a seat within the shadow of the wall, where
she remained, leaning her head on the cushions, as though in a
death-like swoon. Lilias looked inquiringly at her aunt, almost fearing
her new-found cousin might be ill. But Lady Randolph merely answered,
"It is always so;" and no further notice was taken of her.

They went to dinner shortly after, and Lilias thought there could not be
a more complete picture of comfort and happiness than the luxurious
room, with its blazing fire, and warm crimson hangings, and the large
family party met round the table, where every imaginable luxury was
collected. Little did her guilelessness conceive of the deep drama
working beneath that fair outward show. Her very ignorance of the world
and its ways, prevented her feeling any embarrassment amongst those who,
she concluded, must be her friends, because they were her relations, and
she talked gayly and happily with Walter, who was seated next to her,
and who seemed to think he had found in her a more congenial spirit than
any other within the walls of Randolph Abbey. All the rest of the party,
excepting one, joined in the conversation: Lady Randolph, with a few
coldly sarcastic remarks, stripped every subject she touched upon of all
poetry or softness of coloring; she seemed to be one whom life had
handled so roughly that it could no longer wear any disguise for her,
and at once, in all things, she ever grasped the bitterness of truth,
and wished to hold its unpalatable draught to the shrinking lips of
others. Sir Michael listened with interest to every word which Lilias
uttered, and encouraged her to talk of her Irish life; whilst Gabriel,
with the sweetest of voices, displayed so much talent and brilliancy in
every word he said, that he might well have excited the envy of his
competitors, but for the extraordinary humility which he manifested in
every look and gesture. There was one only who did not speak, and to
that one Lilias's attention was irresistibly drawn. She could not
refrain from gazing, almost in awe, on Aletheia, with her deadly pale