The Small House at Allington

would chuck them on one side, leaving them for the whole day unopened. He had already made up his mind that he would quarrel with the countess also, very shortly after his marriage; indeed, that he would separate himself from the whole family if it were possible. And yet he had entered into this engagement mainly with the view of reaping those advantages which would accrue to him from being allied to the de Courcys! The squire and his nephew were wretched in thinking that this man was escaping without punishment, but they might have spared themselves that misery.

It had been understood from the first that he was to spend his Christmas at Courcy Castle. From this undertaking it was quite out of his power to enfranchise himself: but he resolved that his visit should be as short as possible. Christmas Day unfortunately came on a Monday, and it was known to the de Courcy world that Saturday was almost a dies non at the General Committee Office. As to those three days there was no escape for him; but he made Alexandrina understand that the three Commissioners were men of iron as to any extension of those three days. 'I must be absent again in February, of course,' he said, almost making his wail audible in the words he used, 'and therefore it is quite impossible that I should stay now beyond the Monday.' Had there been attractions for him at Courcy Castle I think he might have arranged with Mr Optimist for a week or ten days. 'We shall be all alone,' the countess wrote to him, 'and I hope you will have an opportunity of learning more of our ways than you have ever really been able to do as yet.' This was bitter as gall to him. But in this world all valuable commodities have their price; and when men such as Crosbie aspire to obtain for themselves an alliance with noble families, they must pay the market price for the article which they purchase.

'You'll all come up and dine with us on Monday,' the squire said to Mrs Dale, about the middle of the previous week.

'Well, I think not,' said Mrs Dale, 'we are better, perhaps, as we are.'

At this moment the squire and his sister-in-law were on much more friendly terms than had been usual with them, and he took her reply in good part, understanding her feeling. Therefore, he pressed his request, and succeeded.

'I think you're wrong,' he said, 'I don't suppose that we shall have a very merry Christmas. You and the girls will hardly have that whether you eat your pudding here or at the Great House. But it will be better for us all to make the attempt. It's the right thing to do. That's the way I look at it.'

'I'll ask Lily,' said Mrs Dale.

'Do, do. Give her my love, and tell her from me that, in spite of all that has come and gone, Christmas Day should still be to her a day of rejoicing. We'll dine about three, so that the servants can have the afternoon.'

'Of course we'll go,' said Lily; 'why not? We always do. And we'll have blind-man's-buff with all the Boyces, as we had last year, if uncle will ask them up.' But the Boyces were not asked up for that occasion.

But Lily, though she put on it all so brave a face, had much to suffer, and did in truth suffer greatly. If you, my reader, ever chanced to slip into the gutter on a wet day, did you not find that the sympathy of the bystanders was by far the severest part of your misfortune? Did you not declare to yourself that all might yet be well, if the people would only walk on and not look at you? And yet you cannot blame those who stood and pitied you; or, perhaps, essayed to rub you down, and assist you in the recovery of your bedaubed hat. You, yourself, if you see a man fall, cannot walk by as though nothing uncommon had happened to him. It was so with Lily. The people of Allington could not regard her with their ordinary eyes. They would look at her tenderly, knowing that she was a wounded fawn, and thus they aggravated the soreness of her wound. Old Mrs Hearn condoled with her, telling her that very likely she would be better off as she was. Lily would not lie about it in any way. 'Mrs Hearn,' she said, 'the subject is painful to me.' Mrs Hearn said no more about it, but on every meeting between them she looked the things she did not say. 'Miss Lily!' said Hopkins, one day, 'Miss Lily!'—and as he looked up into her face a tear had almost formed itself in his old eye—'I knew what he was from the first. Oh, dear! oh, dear! if I could have had him killed!' 'Hopkins, how dare you?' said Lily. 'If you speak to me again in such a way, I will tell my uncle.' She turned away from him but immediately turned back again, and put out her little hand to him. 'I beg your pardon,' she said. 'I know how kind you are, and I love you for it.' And then she went away. 'I'll go after him yet, and break the dirty neck of him,' said Hopkins to himself, as he walked down the path.

Shortly before Christmas Day she called with her sister at the vicarage. Bell, in the course of the visit, left the room with one of the Boyce girls, to look at the last chrysanthemums of the year. Then Mrs Boyce took advantage of the occasion to make her little speech. 'My dear Lily,' she said, 'you will think me cold if I do not say one word to you.' 'No, I shall not,' said Lily, almost sharply, shrinking from the finger that threatened to touch her sore. 'There are things which should never be talked about.' 'Well, well; perhaps so,' said Mrs Boyce. But for a minute or two she was unable to fall back upon any other topic, and sat looking at Lily with painful tenderness. I need hardly say what were Lily's sufferings under such a gaze; but