"Surely, madam," cried Kenelm, more startled, more shaken in soul by this appeal, than by the previous revelations, "surely, when we last parted, when I confided to you my love for your niece, when you consented to my proposal to return home and obtain my father's approval of my suit,--surely then was the time to say, 'No; a suitor with claims paramount and irresistible has come before you.'" "I did not then know, Heaven is my witness, I did not then even suspect, that Walter Melville ever dreamed of seeking a wife in the child who had grown up under his eyes. You must own, indeed, how much I discouraged your suit; I could not discourage it more without revealing the secret of her birth, only to be revealed as an extreme necessity. But my persuasion was that your father would not consent to your alliance with one so far beneath the expectations he was entitled to form, and the refusal of that consent would terminate all further acquaintance between you and Lily, leaving her secret undisclosed. It was not till you had left, only indeed two days ago, that I received a letter from Walter Melville,--a letter which told me what I had never before conjectured. Here is the letter, read it, and then say if you have the heart to force yourself into rivalry, with--with--" She broke off, choked by her exertion, thrust the letter into his hands, and with keen, eager, hungry stare watched his countenance while he read. ----- STREET, BLOOMSBURY. MY DEAR FRIEND,--Joy and triumph! My picture is completed, the picture on which for so many months I have worked night and day in this den of a studio, without a glimpse of the green fields, concealing my address from every one, even from you, lest I might be tempted to suspend my labours. The picture is completed: it is sold; guess the price! Fifteen hundred guineas, and to a dealer,--a dealer! Think of that! It is to be carried about the country exhibited by itself. You remember those three little landscapes of mine which two years ago I would gladly have sold for ten pounds, only neither Lily nor you would let me. My good friend and earliest patron, the German merchant at Luscombe, who called on me yesterday, offered to cover them with guineas thrice piled over the canvas. Imagine how happy I felt when I forced him to accept them as a present. What a leap in a man's life it is when he can afford to say, "I give!" Now then, at last, at last I am in a position which justifies the utterance of the hope which has for eighteen years been my solace, my support; been the sunbeam that ever shone through the gloom when my fate was at the darkest; been the melody that buoyed me aloft as in the song of the skylark, when in the voices of men I heard but the laugh of scorn. Do you remember the night on which Lily's mother besought us to bring up her child in ignorance of her parentage, not even to communicate to unkind and disdainful relatives that such a child was born? Do you