“Pity the election can’t come on just now!—­we should have lively times.  A snowball is preferable to an addled egg any day.  The Poltram folks”—­this was the common pronunciation of the town’s name—­“have a liking for missiles at seasons of excitement.”

From table, they went to the library—­as yet unfurnished with volumes—­and made themselves comfortable by the fireside.  Through the windows nothing could be seen but a tempestuous whirl of flakes.  Lilian’s cat, which had accompanied her in a basket, could not as yet make itself at home on the hearthrug, and was glad of a welcome to its mistress’s lap.  Denzil lit a pipe and studied the political news of the day.

At four o’clock he waited impatiently the call of his relatives.  Lilian, unable to command her agitation, had gone into another room, and was there counting the minutes as if each cost her a drop of heart’s blood.  If this first meeting were but over!  All else seemed easy, could she but face Denzil’s sister without betrayal of her shame and dread.  At length she heard wheels roll up to the door; there were voices in the hall; Denzil came forth with loud and joyous greeting; he led his visitors into the library.  Five minutes more of anguish, and the voices were again audible, approaching, at the door.

“Well, Lily, here is my sister and Mr. Liversedge,” said Denzil.  “No very formidable persons, either of them,” he added merrily, as the best way of making apology for Lilian’s too obvious tremor.

But she conquered her weakness.  The man was of no account to her; upon the woman only her eyes were fixed, for there was the piercing scrutiny, the quick divination, the merciless censure—­ there, if anywhere, in one of her own sex.  From men she might expect tolerance, justice; from women only a swift choice between the bowl and the dagger.  Pride prompted her to hardihood, and when she had wall looked upon Mrs. Liversedge’s face a soothing confidence came to the support of desperation.  She saw the frank fairness of Denzil’s lineaments softened with the kindest of female smiles; a gaze keen indeed, but ingenuous as that of a child; an expression impossible to be interpreted save as that of heartfelt welcome, absolutely unsuspecting, touched even with admiring homage.

They kissed each other, and Lilian’s face glowed.  After that, she could turn almost joyously for Mr. Liversedge’s hearty hand-shake.

“You have come like a sort of snow-queen,” said Tobias, with unusual imaginativeness, pointing to the windows.  “It must have begun just as you got here.”

Perhaps the chill of her fingers prompted him to this poetical flight.  His wife, who had noticed the same thing, added, with practical fervour: 

“I only hope the house is thoroughly dry.  We have had great fires everywhere for more than a fortnight.  As for the snow and frost, you are pretty well used to that, no doubt.”

Painfully on the alert, Lilian of course understood this allusion to the Northern land she was supposed to have quitted recently.