But she and Bell would pass hours together talking of Lily’s prospects.  “It seems strange to me,” said Mrs Dale, “that she of all girls should have been fancied by such a man as Mr Crosbie, or that she should have liked him.  I cannot imagine Lily living in London.”

“If he is good and affectionate to her she will be happy wherever he is,” said Bell.

“I hope so;—­I’m sure I hope so.  But it seems as though she will be so far separated from us.  It is not the distance, but the manner of life which makes the separation.  I hope you’ll never be taken so far from me.”

“I don’t think I shall allow myself to be taken up to London,” said Bell, laughing.  “But one can never tell.  If I do you must follow us, mamma.”

“I do not want another Mr Crosbie for you, dear.”

“But perhaps I may want one for myself.  You need not tremble quite yet, however.  Apollos do not come this road every day.”

“Poor Lily!  Do you remember when she first called him Apollo?  I do, well.  I remember his coming here the day after Bernard brought him down, and how you were playing on the lawn, while I was in the other garden.  I little thought then what it would come to.”

“But, mamma, you don’t regret it?”

“Not if it’s to make her happy.  If she can be happy with him, of course I shall not regret it; not though he were to take her to the world’s end away from us.  What else have I to look for but that she and you should both be happy?”

“Men in London are happy with their wives as well as men in the country.”

“Oh, yes; of all women I should be the first to acknowledge that.”

“And as to Adolphus himself, I do not know why we should distrust him.”

“No, my dear; there is no reason.  If I did distrust him I should not have given so ready an assent to the marriage.  But, nevertheless—­”

“The truth is, you don’t like him, mamma.”

“Not so cordially as I hope I may like any man whom you may choose for your husband.”

And Lily, though she said nothing on the subject to Mrs Dale, felt that her mother was in some degree estranged from her.  Crosbie’s name was frequently mentioned between them, but in the tone of Mrs Dale’s voice, and in her manner when she spoke of him, there was lacking that enthusiasm and heartiness which real sympathy would have produced.  Lily did not analyse her own feelings, or closely make inquiry as to those of her mother, but she perceived that it was not all as she would have wished it to have been.  “I know mamma does not love him,” she said to Bell on the evening of the day on which she received Crosbie’s first letter.

“Not as you do, Lily; but she does love him.”

“Not as I do!  To say that is nonsense, Bell; of course she does not love him as I do.  But the truth is she does not love him at all.  Do you think I cannot see it?”

“I’m afraid that you see too much.”