“Believe me,

“Your tender, loving, broken-hearted,

“Dahlia.”

There was a postscript:—­

“May I still go to lessons?”

Edward finished the letter with a calmly perusing eye.  He had winced triflingly at one or two expressions contained in it; forcible, perhaps, but not such as Mrs. Lovell smiling from the wall yonder would have used.

“The poor child threatens to eat no dinner, if I don’t write to her,” he said; and replied in a kind and magnanimous spirit, concluding—­“Go to lessons, by all means.”

Having accomplished this, he stood up, and by hazard fell to comparing the rival portraits; a melancholy and a comic thing to do, as you will find if you put two painted heads side by side, and set their merits contesting, and reflect on the contest, and to what advantages, personal, or of the artist’s, the winner owes the victory.  Dahlia had been admirably dealt with by the artist; the charm of pure ingenuousness without rusticity was visible in her face and figure.  Hanging there on the wall, she was a match for Mrs. Lovell.

CHAPTER VII

Rhoda returned home the heavier for a secret that she bore with her.  All through the first night of her sleeping in London, Dahlia’s sobs, and tender hugs, and self-reproaches, had penetrated her dreams, and when the morning came she had scarcely to learn that Dahlia loved some one.  The confession was made; but his name was reserved.  Dahlia spoke of him with such sacredness of respect that she seemed lost in him, and like a creature kissing his feet.  With tears rolling down her cheeks, and with moans of anguish, she spoke of the deliciousness of loving:  of knowing one to whom she abandoned her will and her destiny, until, seeing how beautiful a bloom love threw upon the tearful worn face of her sister, Rhoda was impressed by a mystical veneration for this man, and readily believed him to be above all other men, if not superhuman:  for she was of an age and an imagination to conceive a spiritual pre-eminence over the weakness of mortality.  She thought that one who could so transform her sister, touch her with awe, and give her gracefulness and humility, must be what Dahlia said he was.  She asked shyly for his Christian name; but even so little Dahlia withheld.  It was his wish that Dahlia should keep silence concerning him.

“Have you sworn an oath?” said Rhoda, wonderingly.

“No, dear love,” Dahlia replied; “he only mentioned what he desired.”

Rhoda was ashamed of herself for thinking it strange, and she surrendered her judgement to be stamped by the one who knew him well.