between them on the subject.
Everybody would know it! I doubt whether that must not be one of the bitterest drops in the cup which a girl in such circumstances is made to drain. Lily perceived early in the day that the parlour-maid well knew that she had been jilted. The girl's manner was intended to convey sympathy; but it did convey pity; and Lily for a moment felt angry. But she remembered that it must be so, and smiled upon the girl, and spoke kindly to her. What mattered it? All the world would know it in a day or two.
On the following day she went up, by her mother's advice, to see her uncle.
'My child,' said he, 'I am sorry for you. My heart bleeds for you.'
'Uncle,' she said, 'do not mind it. Only do this for me—do not talk about it,—I mean to me.'
'No, no; I will not. That there should ever have been in my house so great a rascal—'
'Uncle! uncle! I will not have that! I will not listen to a word against him from any human being,—not a word! Remember that!' And her eyes flashed as she spoke.
He did not answer her, but took her hand and pressed it, and then she left him. 'The Dales were ever constant!' he said to himself, as he walked up and down the terrace before his house. 'Ever constant!'
XXXI. The Wounded Fawn
Nearly two months passed away, and it was now Christmas time at Allington. It may be presumed that there was no intention at either house that the mirth should be very loud. Such a wound as that received by Lily Dale was one from which recovery could not be quick, and it was felt by all the family that a weight was upon them which made gaiety impracticable. As for Lily herself it may be said that she bore her misfortune with all a woman's courage. For the first week she stood up as a tree that stands against the wind, which is soon to be shivered to pieces because it will not bend. During that week her mother and sister were frightened by her calmness and endurance. She would perform her daily task. She would go out through the village, and appear at her place in church on the first Sunday. She would sit over her book of an evening, keeping back her tears; and would chide her mother and sister when she found that they were regarding her with earnest anxiety.
'Mamma, let it all be as though it had never been,' she said.
'Ah, dear! if that were but possible!'
'God forbid that it should be possible inwardly,' Lily replied, 'but it is possible outwardly. I feel that you are more tender to me than you used to be, and that upsets me. If you would only scold me because I am idle, I should soon be better.' But her mother could not speak to her as she perhaps might have spoken had no grief fallen upon her pet. She could not cease from those anxious tender glances which made Lily know that she was looked on as a fawn wounded almost to death.
At the end of the first week she gave way. 'I won't get up, Bell,' she said one morning, almost petulantly. 'I am ill;—I had better lie here out of the way. Don't make a fuss about it. I'm stupid and foolish, and that makes me ill.'
Thereupon Mrs Dale and Bell were frightened, and looked into each other's blank faces, remembering stories of poor broken-hearted girls who had died because their loves had been unfortunate,—as small wax tapers whose lights are quenched if a breath of wind blows upon then too strongly. But then Lily was in truth no such slight taper as that. Nor was she the stem that must be broken because it will not bend. She bent herself to the blast during that week of illness, and then arose with her form still straight and graceful, and with her bright light unquenched.
After that she would talk more openly to her mother about her loss,—openly and with a true appreciation of the misfortune which had befallen her; but with an assurance of strength which seemed to ridicule the idea of a broken heart. 'I know that I can bear it,' she said, 'and that I can bear it without lasting unhappiness. Of course I shall always love him, and must feel almost as you felt when you lost my father.'
In answer to this Mrs Dale could say nothing. She could not speak out her thoughts about Crosbie, and explain to Lily that he was unworthy of her love. Love does not follow worth, and is not given to excellence;—nor is it destroyed by ill-usage, nor killed by blows and mutilation. When Lily declared that she still loved the man who had so ill-used her, Mrs Dale would be silent. Each perfectly understood the other, but on that matter even they could not interchange their thoughts with freedom.
'You must promise never to be tired of me, mamma,' said Lily.
'Mothers do not often get tired of their children, whatever the
