This, however, has but little to do with Lily, straying along the side of the water, with a smile on her face, and confused happiness in her heart. It was not happiness, it was expectation, a sense of all joyful things that might be coming, a confusion of hope and pleasure. She walked on with a half smile, with the shadows and sunshine flickering over her, and the wind busy about her, blowing her ribbons here and there, ruffling out the short locks that lurked under the braided hair on her forehead. Lily thought this was dreadfully untidy, and gave herself a good deal of trouble to smooth them down again, altogether unwitting of the time when "a fringe" should be counted a beauty. The cottage of Bess and Simon, to which she was going, lay in a little circle, half hidden by the woods before you reached the Castle. It was a very solitary little place, open to the lake, but shut in on three sides by the trees, which there were low down, almost to the water's edge. Now it was not the custom in the district to go on the water on Sundays; but Roger was restless, and beyond rule: he had gone to church in the morning, as in duty bound, but he had not known what to do with himself afterwards. His mind was in a ferment and agitation about Lily, to whom he had said everything a man can say, without eliciting any response,--she had laughed, and she had eluded all his entreaties. No lady would have treated him, he said to himself indignantly, as the little village coquette had done. He was out of patience, and out of heart--exasperated, yet ever more and more bound to her, and feeling it impossible to break his chain. What was he to do? He had strolled down to the beach, and thrown himself into a skiff in the restlessness of his mind, and there he lay, swaying with the swaying of the water, floating where it liked to take him, his oars shipped, himself lying moodily in the boat, thinking--wondering what was to become of him, what she would do, whether he could tear himself away and try to forget her. That perhaps would be the best thing; but could he do it? The future was dark enough to him, even happiness being full of pain. Happiness would be to marry Lily--but if he married Lily, what should he do with her? how present her to his father? how get his marriage acknowledged and approved of? To lose her was despair; but to gain her--would that be so very much better? Poor Roger! he knew very well that Lily had not, could not have, any such love for him as filled his bosom for her. If she loved him at all, it must be in so much lighter, slighter a way, no more than liking, perhaps no more than vanity. This he knew very well by moments--and at this moment felt it to the bottom of his heart.