"Directly--or almost directly. I scarcely know how to set about it. I am sure it has been hard enough to tell you." "My poor Charlotte! What an ungrateful wretch I must be!" "My dear Diana, you have no reason to be grateful. I love you very dearly, and I could not live in this house without you. It is I who have reason to be grateful, when I remember how you bear with mamma's fidgety ways, and with Mr. Sheldon's gloomy temper, and all for love of me." "Yes, Lotta, for love of you," Miss Paget answered, with a sigh; "and I will do more than that for love of you." She had her arm round her happy rival's beautiful head, and she was looking down at the sweet upturned face with supreme tenderness. She felt no anger against this fair enslaver, who had robbed her of her little lamb. She only felt some touch of anger against the Providence which had decreed that the lamb should be so taken. No suspicion of her friend's secret entered Charlotte Halliday's mind. In all their intercourse Diana had spoken very little of Valentine; and in the little she had said there had been always the same half-bitter, half-disdainful tone. Charlotte, in her simple candour, accepted this tone as the evidence of Miss Paget's aversion to her father's _protege_. "Poor Di does not like to see her father give so much of his friendship to a stranger while she is neglected," thought Miss Halliday; and having once jumped at this conclusion, she made no further effort to penetrate the mysteries of Diana's mind. She was less than ever inclined to speculation about Diana's feelings now that she was in love, and blest with the sweet consciousness that her love was returned. Tender and affectionate as she was, she could not quite escape that taint of egotism which is the ruling vice of fortunate lovers. Her mind was not wide enough to hold much more than one image, which demanded so large a space. CHAPTER II. MRS. SHELDON ACCEPTS HER DESTINY.