“It is because I am alone, Helen,” said Lilias, in her faint, pleading tone of self-defence, “because there is no one in the world, not one, to whom I am the best beloved. If I had been like you--if my mother had lived--I think I should have been brave, Helen; but now I have only my grief, nothing more, in all this cold world.” “And Mossgray, Lilias,” said Helen. “I am very ungrateful,” said Lilias, bending her head. “I wanted you to think that I was not selfish, Helen; and yet to lose them all--to lose them both in one year, it is very bitter, very hard; you cannot tell how hard it is.” She was very pale, though perfectly composed; but now as she paused, a red light seemed to flash across her face for a moment, the flicker of that unnatural, feverish hope which she fancied she had tried to quench, but which, instead, was gathering strength every hour, and lighting up her heart with an unnatural radiance. “I wish you could work as I have to do, Lilias,” said Helen, as she drew her homely shawl about her. “I think it would be good medicine if you were strong enough. If we could only change, if you could fight a little as it is natural for me, and I could be patient as you are; but we must be content. I am going out now to my little battle-ground; there are some struggles and bitternesses in it, you know; will you try to-day to think how important you are to all of us--to us all here, Lilias, and to let the sun come in upon you?” “These long days!” said Lilias. “I am not patient, Helen. I think they will never come to an end. Will you bring some of the children with you? Hope Oswald--any of them. I like to see the children; and we will try to-night to forget--to forget,” said Lilias, with the flickering red light upon her face again, “not the sorrow, but the hope.” The feverish hope which had so frail a foundation to build its airy fabric on--what was it that wakened out of the gentle passive depths of Lilias’s mind the feeling that her sinking calm of grief was wrong, and that there was need to exert herself to cast it off? It was not reason, it was not thought; it was a new hysteric strength, other than comes from the deliberated wisdoms of man; a fluttering meteoric light, springing up about her, dangerously exciting, desperate, wild. She said she would forget it; she did not know that it was the fairy strength of this hope inspiring her, which made it possible that she should forget.