Lilia resolved to take my advice, and we strolled in the gardens and into the enclosed park. I tried to find out something about the chapel in the circular garden, but she was evidently on guard. I thought of her, dear child, while I was dressing. How few real friends she could have had! These Mervyns, the rector and his wife, seemed the only ones. I was anxious to see them. They had been invited for the evening. Lilia told me “they never would come to dinner; it was no use asking them.” I went downstairs very soon after the second dressing bell rang. The drawing-room, which is all chocolate-colour, white, and gilding, struck me as like a picture I had recently seen. The room was lighted by short, thick wax-candles in wall candelabra. In the middle of the room an enormous china bowl of white roses on a round black table perfumed the air. The other object which attracted my attention was a huge grand piano in ebony. I was just going round to ascertain the maker’s name, when someone jumped up from an easy-chair—Captain Roderick. “Hulloa!” he said (he had a newspaper in his hand), “it’s Mr. Paull, isn’t it?” I shook hands with him. A prodigiously good-looking fellow, this cousin, and good company. It was a lively dinner-table. Lilia, child as she is, soon cast aside the stately manner she had put on outside the drawing-room door when she came sailing in to interrupt our _tête-à-tête_; and she laughed and talked with us all till over dessert we none of us noticed how time fled, until the footman announced that “Mr. and Mrs. Mervyn were in the drawing-room, and coffee was served.” Mr. Mervyn, the clergyman of the parish, is a tall, dark man with white hair and keen black eyes. His wife is one of those large, soft, fair women with gentle faces and sweet manners, who can nevertheless be stern and unflinching when there is a question of right and wrong—the very woman for a sick nurse. While we men talked over our coffee, Roderick sat down to the piano and sang: little Italian folk-songs and German _lieder_. When he was singing, there was a simplicity about him that gave him a likeness to _her_. She hung over the piano, and seemed almost to forget where she was. When I remembered her confidences a few hours ago, I was puzzled. Did she love him—or his music? Presently, my question was answered. When he had sung half-a-dozen _chansonnettes_, he rose and came across to us. “You like music, doctor?” he asked. “I like yours,” I said emphatically. “Has Lilia sung to you yet?” he asked. “No, and I do not intend to,” said the young lady, jumping up from the sofa where she was sitting by Mrs. Mervyn, and joining us. “And pray why not?” asked Sir Roderick.