A STRANGE STORY.

By the Author of "My Novel," "Rienzi," &c.

CHAPTER XVIII.

In spite of the previous assurance of Mrs.
Poyntz, it was not without an uneasy apprehension
that I approached the cedar-tree, under
which Mrs. Ashleigh still sat, her friend beside
her. I looked on the fair creature whose arm
was linked in mine. So young, so singularly
lovely, and with all the gifts of birth and
fortune which bend avarice and ambition the more
submissively to youth and beauty, I felt as if I
had wronged what a parent might justly deem her
natural lot.

"Oh, if your mother should disapprove," said
I, falteringly.

Lilian lent on my arm less lightly. "If I had
thought so," she said, with her soft blush,
"should I be thus by your side?"

So we passed under the boughs of the dark tree,
and Lilian left me, and kissed Mrs. Ashleigh's
cheek, then seating herself on the turf, laid her
head quietly on her mother's lap. I looked on
the Queen of the Hill, whose keen eye shot over
me. I thought there was a momentary expression
of pain or displeasure on her countenance;
but it passed. Still there seemed to me
something of irony, as well as of triumph or congratulation,
in the half smile with which she quitted
her seat, and in the tone with which she whispered,
as she glided by me to the open sward, "So,
then, it is settled."

She walked lightly and quickly down the lawn.
When she was out of sight I breathed more
freely. I took the seat which she had left, by
Mrs. Ashleigh's side, and said, "A little while
ago I spoke of myself as a man without kindred,
without home, and now I come to you and ask for
both."

Mrs. Ashleigh looked at me benignly, then
raised her daughter's face from her lap, and
whispered, "Lilian," and Lilian's lips moved,
but I did not hear her answer. Her mother did.
She took Lilian's hand, simply placed it in mine,
and said, "As she chooses, I choose; whom she
loves, I love."

CHAPTER XIX.

FROM that evening till the day Mrs. Ashleigh
and Lilian went on the dreaded visit, I was
always at their house, when my avocations
allowed me to steal to it; and during those few
days, the happiest I had ever known, it seemed
to me that years could not have more deepened
my intimacy with Lilian's exquisite nature,—
made me more reverential of its purity, or more
enamoured of its sweetness. I could detect in her
but one fault, and I rebuked myself for believing
that it was a fault. We see many who neglect the
minor duties of life, who lack watchful
forethought and considerate care for others, and we
recognise the cause of this failing in levity or
egotism. Certainly neither of those tendencies
of character could be ascribed to Lilian. Yet
still in daily trifles there was something of that
neglect, some lack of that care and forethought.
She loved her mother with fondness and devotion,
yet it never occurred to her, to aid in those
petty household cares in which her mother
centred so much of habitual interest. She was
full of tenderness and pity to all want and suffering,
yet many a young lady on the Hill was
more actively beneficent—visiting the poor in
their sickness, or instructing their children in
the Infant Schools. I was persuaded that her
love for me was deep and truthful; it was clearly
void of all ambition; doubtless she would have
borne unflinching and contented whatever the
world considers to be sacrifice and privation,—yet
I should never have expected her to take her share
in the troubles of ordinary life. I could never
have applied to her the homely but significant
name of helpmate. I reproach myself while I write
for noticing such defect—if defect it were—in
what may be called the practical routine of our
positive, trivial, human existence. No doubt
it was this that had caused Mrs. Poyntz's harsh
judgment against the wisdom of my choice. But
such chiller shade upon her charming nature was
reflected from no inert, unamiable self-love. It
was but the consequence of that self-absorption
which the habit of reverie had fostered. I
cautiously abstained from all allusion to those
visionary deceptions, which she had confided
to me, as the truthful impressions of spirit,
if not of sense. To me any approach to what
I termed superstition was displeasing, any
indulgence of phantasies not within the measured
and beaten tracks of healthful imagination, more
than displeased me in her—it alarmed. I would
not by a word encourage her in persuasions which
I felt it would be at present premature to reason