No more than this had ever been said between the father and daughter upon the subject of Miss Desmond’s matrimonial arrangements; but Maude had been able to discover that her father’s vexation was not a matter of the moment, to be forgotten and done with after the first surprise of the announcement. Lionel Hillary was tolerably gracious to Mr. Tredethlyn, but his manner towards Julia changed altogether. There were times when he scarcely took the trouble to conceal his displeasure from that young lady herself. He would sit watching her moodily when Francis Tredethlyn was by her side, and would sometimes, when the conversation gave him an opening, break out into some cynical generality upon the husband-hunting propensities of modern young ladies. Francis was too simple-minded to comprehend the drift of these covert sneers; but Julia understood her benefactor, and defied him with her bold handsome eyes and her flashing teeth. “He wanted thirty thousand a year for his daughter, I suppose,” she thought, when she pondered on Mr. Hillary’s discourtesy. “What grasping, avaricious creatures these rich people are!” Christmas was approaching, and that festival period was to be spent at the Cedars, to which place Maude Hillary was tenderly attached, despite her sentimental talk about poverty and a simple home deep down in the heart of rustic England. The young ladies’ portmanteaus had been packed ready for the departure from Brighton, and Maude and Julia only waited for Mr. Hillary to escort them on their homeward journey. He had not been so much with them during the last week or so of their sojourn: and as Francis Tredethlyn only came backwards and forwards with Mr. Hillary, the girls had been left by themselves, with no better occupation or amusement than the reading of new books, the trying of new music, and a contemplation of the blusterous gray waves beating eternally before their windows: for the weather had been cold and stormy of late, and the delicious esplanade had been deserted; only an occasional masculine wanderer, out for a “constitutional,” buffeted the winds and strode in dismal loneliness along the pavement beneath Mr. Hillary’s windows. It was only natural, under these circumstances, that the young ladies should have grown weary of Brighton. They had a close carriage at their disposal; but then driving through perpetual tempest is not particularly agreeable even in a close carriage. They went shopping in East Street two or three times during the severe weather, and bought expensive materials for impossible complications of Berlin-wool work and gold beads; and, experimentalizing with the same on their return home, discovered themselves at sea in a wide ocean of perplexity. Thus it was that they grew very tired of Brighton, and wished most earnestly for Mr. Hillary’s coming.