“Would he?”

“And how submissive you would be, if you were his wife!  It’s a thousand pities that you are not in love with each other,—­that is, if you are not.”

“Lily, I thought that there was a promise between us about that.”

“Ah! but that was in other days.  Things are all altered since that promise was given,—­all the world has been altered.”  And as she said this the tone of her voice was changed, and it had become almost sad.  “I feel as though I ought to be allowed to speak about anything I please.”

“You shall, if it pleases you, my pet.”

“You see how it is, Bell; I can never again have anything of my own to talk about.”

“Oh, my darling, do not say that.”

“But it is so, Bell; and why not say it?  Do you think I never say it to myself in the hours when I am all alone, thinking over it—­thinking, thinking, thinking.  You must not,—­you must not grudge to let me talk of it sometimes.”

“I will not grudge you anything;—­only I cannot believe that it must be so always.”

“Ask yourself, Bell, how it would be with you.  But I sometimes fancy that you measure me differently from yourself.”

“Indeed I do, for I know how much better you are.”

“I am not so much better as to be ever able to forget all that.  I know I never shall do so.  I have made up my mind about it clearly and with an absolute certainty.”

“Lily, Lily, Lily! pray do not say so.”

“But I do say it.  And yet I have not been very mopish and melancholy; have I, Bell?  I do think I deserve some little credit, and yet, I declare, you won’t allow me the least privilege in the world.”

“What privilege would you wish me to give you?”

“To talk about Dr Crofts.”

“Lily, you are a wicked, wicked tyrant.”  And Bell leaned over her, and fell upon her, and kissed her, hiding her own face in the gloom of the evening.  After that it came to be an accepted understanding between them that Bell was not altogether indifferent to Dr Crofts.

“You heard what he said, my darling,” Mrs Dale said the next day, as the three were in the room together after Dr Crofts was gone.  Mrs Dale was standing on one side of the bed, and Bell on the other, while Lily was scolding them both.  “You can get up for an hour or two to-morrow, but he thinks you had better not go out of the room.”

“What would be the good of that, mamma?  I am so tired of looking always at the same paper.  It is such a tiresome paper.  It makes one count the pattern over and over again.  I wonder how you ever can live here.”

“I’ve got used to it, you see.”

“I never can get used to that sort of thing; but go on counting, and counting, and counting.  I’ll tell you what I should like; and I’m sure it would be the best thing, too.”

“And what would you like?” said Bell.

“Just to get up at nine o’clock to-morrow, and go to church as though nothing had happened.  Then, when Dr Crofts came in the evening, you would tell him I was down at the school.”