oes up in the afternoon; will you,
Bell? And I'll try to get on with this stuff in the meantime." Then
again she sat with her eyes fixed upon the pages of the book. "I'll
tell you what, mamma,--you may have some comfort in this: that when
to-day's gone by, I shan't make a fuss about any other day."

"Nobody thinks that you are making a fuss, Lily."

"Yes, but I am. Isn't it odd, Bell, that it should take place on
Valentine's day? I wonder whether it was so settled on purpose,
because of the day. Oh, dear, I used to think so often of the letter
that I should get from him on this day, when he would tell me that I
was his valentine. Well; he's got another--valen--tine--now." So much
she said with articulate voice, and then she broke down, bursting out
into convulsive sobs, and crying in her mother's arms as though she
would break her heart. And yet her heart was not broken, and she
was still strong in that resolve which she had made, that her grief
should not overpower her. As she had herself said, the thing would
not have been so difficult, had she not been weakened by illness.

"Lily, my darling; my poor, ill-used darling."

"No, mamma, I won't be that." And she struggled grievously to get the
better of the hysterical attack which had overpowered her. "I won't
be regarded as ill-used; not as specially ill-used. But I am your
darling, your own darling. Only I wish you'd beat me and thump me
when I'm such a fool, instead of pitying me. It's a great mistake
being soft to people when they make fools of themselves. There, Bell;
there's your stupid book, and I won't have any more of it. I believe
it was that that did it." And she pushed the book away from her.

After this little scene she said no further word about Crosbie and
his bride on that day, but turned the conversation towards the
prospect of their new house at Guestwick.

"It will be a great comfort to be nearer Dr Crofts; won't it, Bell?"

"I don't know," said Bell.

"Because if we are ill, he won't have such a terrible distance to
come."

"That will be a comfort for him, I should think," said Bell, very
demurely.

In the evening the first volume of the _French Revolution_ had been
procured, and Lily stuck to her reading with laudable perseverance;
till at eight her mother insisted on her going to bed, queen as she
was.

"I don't believe a bit, you know, that the king was such a bad man as
that," she said.

"I do," said Bell.

"Ah, that's because yo