Was it not ever so much better that she should reward this faithful fellow’s devotion, and marry, and be happy in the beaten track of life? He had told himself once that she was a creature just a little too bright and lovely for treading beaten tracks, a girl who ought to be the heroine of some romantic history. Yet, are these heroines of romance the happiest among women? Was the young woman who was sewn up in a sack and drowned in the Bosphorus happy, though her fate inspired one of the finest poems that ever was written? Was Sappho particularly blest, or Hero, Heloise, or Juliet? Their fame was the fruit of exceptional disaster, and not of exceptional joy. The Greek was wise who said that the happiest she is the woman who has no history. Sir Vernon Lawford came in while they were all talking of hot-houses, and asked for a cup of tea, an unusual condescension on his part, and which fluttered Daphne a little as she rang the bell for a fresh teapot. ‘Don’t trouble yourself, my dear. Give me anything you have there,’ he said, more kindly than he was wont to speak. ‘So you were too tired to show at luncheon. Your aunt says you danced too much.’ ‘It was her first ball,’ pleaded Madoline. ‘Yes; the first, but not likely to be the last. She is launched now, and will have plenty of invitations. A foolish friend of mine told me that Daphne was the belle of the ball.’ ‘She was,’ said Edgar sturdily. ‘I saw two old women standing on a rout-seat to look at her.’ ‘Is that conclusive?’ asked Sir Vernon good-humouredly, and with a shrewd glance from Edgar to his fair-haired daughter. ‘I think people must have been demented if they wasted a look upon me while Lina was in the room,’ said Daphne. ‘Oh, but every one knows Lina,’ answered her father, pleased at this homage to his beloved elder daughter. ‘You are a novelty.’ He was proud of her success, in spite of himself; proud that she should have burst upon his Warwickshire friends like a revelation of hitherto unknown beauty—unknown, at least, since his second wife, in all the witchery of her charms, had turned the heads of the county twenty years ago. That beauty had been a fatal dower—fatal to her, fatal to him—and he had often told himself that Daphne’s prettiness was a perilous thing; to be looked at with the eye of fear and suspicion rather than that of love. And yet he was pleased at her triumph, and inclined to be kinder to her on account thereof. They seemed a happy family-party at dinner that day. Madoline was full of delight in the improvement of her future home—full of gratitude to her betrothed for the largeness with which he had anticipated her wishes. Edgar was in high spirits; Daphne all gaiety; Sir Vernon unusually open in speech and manner. If Gerald was more silent than the others, nobody noticed his reserve. He had been quiet all day, and when Madoline had questioned him as to the cause, had owned to not being particularly well.