and chat in a rational quiet way. Not as yet could she do so. Nevertheless it was well with her,—within her own bosom. She had declared to herself that she would conquer her misery,—as she had also declared to herself during her illness that her misfortune should not kill her,—and she was in the way to conquer it. She told herself that the world was not over for her because her sweet hopes had been frustrated. The wound had been deep and very sore, but the flesh of the patient had been sound and healthy, and her blood pure. A physician having knowledge in such cases would have declared, after long watching of her symptoms, that a cure was probable. Her mother was the physician who watched her with the closest eyes; and she, though she was sometimes driven to doubt, did hope, with stronger hope from day to day, that her child might live to remember the story of her love without abiding agony.
That nobody should talk to her about it,—that had been the one stipulation which she had seemed to make, not sending forth a request to that effect among her friends in so many words, but showing by certain signs that such was her stipulation. A word to that effect she had spoken to her uncle,—as may be remembered, which word had been regarded with the closest obedience. She had gone out into her little world very soon after the news of Crosbie's falsehood had reached her,—first to church and then among the people of the village, resolving to carry herself as though no crushing weight had fallen upon her. The village people had understood it all, listening to her and answering her without the proffer of any outspoken parley.
'Lord bless 'ee,' said Mrs Crump, the postmistress,—and Mrs Crump was supposed to have the sourest temper in Allington,—'whenever I look at thee, Miss Lily, I thinks that surely thee is the beautifulest young 'ooman in all these parts.'
'And you are the crossest old woman,' said Lily, laughing, and giving her hand to the postmistress.
'So I be,' said Mrs Crump. 'So I be.' Then Lily sat down in the cottage and asked after her ailments. With Mrs Hearn it was the same. Mrs Hearn, after that first meeting which has been already mentioned, petted and caressed her, but spoke no further word of her misfortune. When Lily called a second time upon Mrs Boyce, which she did boldly by herself, that lady did begin one other word of commiseration. 'My dearest Lily, we have all been made so unhappy—' So far Mrs Boyce got, sitting close to Lily and striving to look into her face; but Lily, with a slightly heightened colour, turned sharp round upon one of the Boyce girls, tearing Mrs Boyce's commiseration into the smallest shreds. 'Minnie,' she said, speaking quite loud, almost with girlish ecstasy, 'what do you think Tartar did yesterday? I never laughed so much in my life.' Then she told a ludicrous story about a very ugly terrier which belonged to the squire. After that even Mrs Boyce made no further attempt. Mrs Dale and Bell both understood that such was to be the rule,—the rule even to them. Lily would speak to them occasionally on the matter,—to one of them at a time, beginning with some almost single word of melancholy resignation, and then would go on till she opened her very bosom before them; but no such conversation was ever begun by them. But now, in these busy days of the packing, that topic seemed to have been banished altogether.
'Mamma,' she said, standing on the top rung of a house-ladder, from which position she was handing down glass out of a cupboard, 'are you sure that these things are ours? I think some of them belong to the house.'
'I'm sure about that bowl at any rate, because it was my mother's before I was married.'
'Oh, dear, what should I do if I were to break it? Whenever I handle anything very precious I always feel inclined to throw it down and smash it. Oh! it was as nearly gone as possible, mamma; but that was your fault.'
'If you don't take care you'll be nearly gone yourself. Do take hold of something.'
'Oh, Bell, here's the inkstand for which you've been moaning for three years.'
'I haven't been moaning for three years; but who could have put it up there?'
'Catch it,' said Lily; and she threw the bottle down on to a pile of carpets.
At this moment a step was heard in the hall, and the squire entered through the open door of the room. 'So you're all at work,' said he.
'Yes, we're at work,' said Mrs Dale, almost with a tone of shame. 'If it is to be done it is as well that it should be got over.'
'It makes me wretched enough,' said the squire. 'But I didn't come to talk about that. I've brought you a note from Lady Julia De Guest, and I've had one from the earl. They want us all to go there and stay the week after Easter.'
Mrs Dale and the girls, when this very sudden proposition was made to them, all remained fixed in their place, and, for a moment, were speechless. Go and stay a week at Guestwick Manor! The whole family! Hitherto the intercourse between the Manor and the Small House had been confined to morning calls, very far between. Mrs Dale had never dined there, and had latterly even deputed the calling to her
