husband's will, and her departure from the Abbey, and her bosom friend found her trite ejaculations excessively wearisome, as she sat patiently by the side of Lady Adelstane's couch, in her carefully darkened boudoir.

'I suppose I look too dreadful,' wailed Augusta. 'I can't sleep at night; thinking what has become of Philippa, and now this dreadful blow! I feel all this trouble must have made its mark on me, and I hardly dare look at my own face in the glass, feeling as I do!'

'Black is very becoming to you,' said Lady Grace; but, of course, crying is not becoming to anyone. If I were you I should try not to cry any more. What good does it do?'

That is what Blanche says. She is so unsympathetic,' sobbed Augusta resentfully. Yet if I show the slightest interest in anything practical, she is ready to hint that I never cared for poor Cecil at all. One's relatives are very poor comfort in time of trouble, I must say.'

They are very poor comfort at any time, so far as I have ever been able to make out,' said Lady Grace. Try not to talk about it, Gussie, and you will grow calmer.'

But Augusta had no idea of growing calmer until the first days of mourning should be over, and gave full vent to her emotions upon every opporunity.

'How her ladyship du take on,' said the west-country servants admiringly. But Pilkington contented himself with a dark reminder that shallow water made most noise.

George Chilcott proposed to escort Augusta back to town on the morning after the funeral; when, as Philippa's trustee, he felt doubly bound to devote himself to the search. He had replied to Miss Dulcinea's telegram with a peremptory request that she should keep Lily at Shepherd's Rest, and as he wrote a line to the same effect to Clara, the effort to reclaim the child had been abandoned by his mother and sister, and George did not, in the midst of his new cares, give much thought to his little daughter, of whose happiness he felt assured, and whom he had not time to visit.

But as he stood upon the platform at Ilverton, watching the arrival of the Welwysbere carriage, and the almost reverential reception of the new-made widow, whose face was hidden by an opaque crape veil, and who leant the weight of her affliction heavily upon the arm of her good-natured brother-in-law, followed by

Blanche Ralt and Grace Trumoin-George was startled by a sudden timid touch upon his arm.

There stood little Lily, looking up at him with great frightened eyes, though a furtive smile hovered about her face, which was something plumper and rosier than when he had seen it last.

"Why, my little Lily!' he said, surprised and startled at this unexpected apparition. He lifted her from the ground to brush her forehead with his moustache. 'Has Aunt Dulcinea brought you down to see your dad off? That is very good of her.'

'Don't be angry, papa,' faltered Lily.

'You came alone?' George looked vexed and a worried pucker rose between his brows. That was not right, Lily.'

'No, no, Sally came. I go for walks with Sally,' and she indicated a cheerful ruddy countenance in the background of Augusta's solemn train of black-clad retainers. Aunt Dulcinea said I might come-she did not like to intrude' said Lily, in an awe-struck whisper, with another quick glance towards the black-clad group. 'But she said no one would mind me, as I am so little. She did not know why I wanted so much to come.'

'Not to see me?' said George, relieved of his fears lest Lily should have lapsed into evil ways under the feeble rule of poor Miss Dulcinea.

'I wanted to see you, daddy,' said Lily, with the coaxing accent which Clara deprecated, and she laid her face against the big hand. Then she looked up imploringly and cried: 'Oh, daddy, take me with you!'

'Why, I thought you wanted so much to stay at Shepherd's Rest? Wasn't that what you wanted?'

'Yes, yes, I like being there,' said Lily almost feverishly. 'But it's not that, it's not that! Oh, daddy, daddy, I want to go to Cousin Catherine.'

'My dear,' said George gently, 'don't you know Cousin Catherine is in very great trouble now? She couldn't think of you or of anything else.'

'I know, I know, but I don't want her to think of me. I want to comfort her,' said Lily, clasping her little thin hands with a gesture so like Delia's, that George almost started. 'I daresay you think it would be impossible, a little girl like me; but, oh, you don't know how Cousin Catherine cried at night when Philippa went to London, and she said it comforted her then to have me with her, and I am sure it would comfort her again now. Oh, do

take me, I could comfort her at night,' said the child almost passionately, and everyone says it will kill her if Philippa is never found any more.'

George Chilcott pulled his moustache irresolutely. His heart inclined him to take Lily to London.

"If I thought it would comfort Catherine,' he said, and looked appealingly at Lady Grace and Mrs. Ralt, who had greeted him in silence, and now stood looking down at the little anxious questioner, too much absorbed in her request to have even noted their proximity. But I couldn't take you in any case to-day, there would have to be all sorts of arrangements made. I'll think about it, Lily, and perhaps send for you later.'

'But there need be no arrangements, for I have made them all,' said the little creature, trembling with hope. She was holding a tightly packed brown-paper parcel under her left arm, which she now produced and exhibited. I have brought my nightgown and my toothbrush, and a pair of shoes and three clean pocket-handkerchiefs in case you should say yes. And I have my Sunday frock on. I am all ready for London, papa, I am indeed!'

'Poor little thing!' said Lady Grace.

'Such forethought ought to be rewarded,' said Mrs. Ralt, her hearty tones somewhat subdued to attune with her mourning garb. 'I believe it might do Catherine good, if anything would,' she said. 'Let's take her along, Mr. Chilcott, Grace and I will look after her, and if Catherine doesn't want her, why, there's no harm done, for I'll take her to my hotel, and welcome.'

'It's most awfully kind of you,' said George; but there's Miss Dulcinea to be thought of.'

'I have written a letter for Sally to take back; she has it in her pocket. I tried to think of everything,' said Lily's small treble. 'I didn't want nobody to be anxious about me.'

Having thus miraculously obtained her wish, and heard Augusta's faint assent to Mrs. Ralt's proposition that the child should travel with them, Lily had the sense to efface herself as much as possible, following Lady Grace like a shadow, and not daring to utter a sound in Augusta's portly sable-shrouded presence.

She curled herself into the corner of the compartment she was told to enter, and looked out of the window, watching her father give a leaf out of his pocket-book to Sally for Miss Dulcinea, and send her away, and hardly daring to breathe until the train was off, when she ventured upon a whispered inquiry.

'Isn't daddy coming?

'He is in a smoking carriage.'

She was so small and slight for her age, that she was used to being lifted on to people's knees, and after an hour or two of patient silence in her corner, accepted gratefully the overtures of Lady Grace, and came and sat in her lap. Their conversation was carried on in whispers for fear of waking Augusta; until presently drowsi ness overtook Lily herself, and she fell asleep with her head on her friend's shoulder.

To Grace Trumoin it was almost a strange sensation to have a child slumbering in her arms, and she felt very tenderly towards Lily, whose black eyelashes lay against such a small pale face that she looked scarcely more than a baby as she slept. The thin childish arms embraced her waist, and the little dark head gradually drooped until it lay in the hollow of her arm, and it was so that Lily's father saw them together, when the train stopped at Swindon.

The warm colour rose in Lady Grace's face as she met his pleased grateful look, because, alas, she knew that Blanche Ralt was looking on and approving, in the belief that she was acting by design, and playing her cards well in the pre-arranged game of matrimony.

'He will not think so,' she said to herself sadly; 'he is indeed without guile, humble and unsuspecting in his strength and his honesty. And if they knew what was in my heart-what a longing for duties clear, and simple, and straightforward, for a place of rest, to be necessary to someone, even if it were only this poor little girl-they would not understand; with their kind vulgar scheming to find George Chilcott a wife, and me a home of my own.'

But she did Blanche Ralt, at least, injustice; for though she might be vulgar, and a schemer, she would have understood. And but that she believed Grace Trumoin would make George's happiness and her own in the hoped-for marriage, she would not have lifted her little finger to bring it about.

The agony of joy which little Lily exhibited when she threw herself into Catherine's arms melted the hearts of all who were present except Catherine herself; for there is, perhaps, no heart so dead towards another woman's child as that of the mother who has just lost her own.

Poor little Lily, who had mistaken Catherine's motherly tenderness, and the caresses which had been heaped upon her at Shepherd's

Rest, for evidence that she was as dearly loved as Philippa herself, felt all the chill of disappointment without knowing why, and the conviction that they had made a mistake flashed upon Blanche Ralt, who drew Catherine aside.

'Look here, Catherine, there is no reason you should be saddled with that kid. Let me take her to the hotel with us. Or, here is Grace Trumoin dying to take charge of her. They've taken a regular fancy to one another. And you look like a ghost, you're not fit to have her with you. But the poor little atom, you see, took it into her head that she would be a comfort to you.'

'A comfort!' Catherine almost smiled.

'Aye-well, I see we were a pack of fools; but you know we didn't want to leave a stone unturned-and if she could have brought you the merest shred-one never knows. A child, or an animal, I've often found are better comforters to us in trouble than we can be to each other-though I've never known such trouble as yours. But you shan't be bothered-'

Stay!' cried Catherine, recovering herself. I am growing selfish and hateful in my trouble. Did I seem unloving to Delia's child, poor little Lily?

'Of course it's understood you want nobody's child about you just now,' said Blanche.

'How could I be so unkind?' said Catherine, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling she ran to Lily, who was standing forlornly at the end of the room, holding her father's hand, clinging faithfully to her brown-paper parcel. She kissed the child many times to make amends for her coldness, vehemently insisting that she should remain in charge of herself and Roper, and not be carried off to Lady Grace's flat or Mrs. Ralt's hotel.

"I am sure I have no objection, I am only too willing to agree to anything that can be of any comfort to anybody,' said Augusta faintly, when Catherine appealed for her consent to this arrangement. Only, mind, I distinctly decline to be responsible for her. I have had quite enough, Catherine, of trying to take care of other people's children.'

CHAPTER XVII.

HOWEVER deep the sorrow, the comments of a fool can still aggravate the torments of anxiety, as the worrying of a cur tortured the dying lion in the fable.