Poor Maude Hillary’s lessons in the mysteries of every-day life had only just begun; she had yet to learn that there are other disappointments than those which wait upon true love, other pains and sorrows than those which have their root in the heart; and that there are such things as marrying and giving in marriage for the love of thirty thousand a year. She spent a weary day in the pleasant drawing-room, where the red glow of a great fire illuminated as much prettiness in the way of china, and Parian, and bronze, and ormolu, and enamel, as would have stocked a _bric-à-brac_ shop in Wardour Street. She spent a tiresome day, that seemed interminably long, lying on a low sofa near the fire, thinking of her father’s troubles and Julia’s desertion. She thought also of that cruel scene, in which she had seemed to play so contemptible a part. What bitter humiliation it was to look back upon, now that the mad impulse of the moment, the desperate courage that had made her snatch at _any_ chance of help for her father, had altogether passed away! How mean and pitiful the whole business seemed now to her calmer judgment, looked upon in the cold light of common, sense! A borrower, a beggar almost, a miserable suppliant to her friend’s affianced husband. What wonder that Francis Tredethlyn had basely taken advantage of that false position, to avow a passion whose least expression was an insult to her on the lips of Julia Desmond’s lover? And then what wasted humiliation, what unnecessary shame; for had not she turned upon him and upbraided him in the next moment, forgetful of her father’s desperate need! Such thoughts as these were scarcely pleasant company all through that brief January day, which seemed so long to Maude Hillary. The slow hours crept on, and she still lay tossing restlessly on the sofa, which offered all that upholstery can offer for the consolation of a troubled mind. A servant brought lamps, and crept from window to window, drawing the curtains as stealthily as a burglar would have cut a square out of the iron door of Mr. Hillary’s plate-room. The first dinner-bell rang out in the old-fashioned cupola upon the roof, and informed all Twickenham that it was time for the people at the Cedars to array themselves for the evening meal: but Maude still lay upon the sofa, hiding her flushed face in the pillows, and trying to quiet the throbbing in her burning head. What did it matter? The poor inexperienced girl broke down all at once in her social comedy. She could act the wearisome play no longer; she wanted to give up all her share in this world, and to go to bed and lie there quietly until she died. All the common business of life seemed unutterably loathsome to her,--the dressing and dining, the simpering small-talk, the finery of a grand house no longer honestly maintained. Oh, that it could all be swept away like the vision engendered out of some troubled slumber; giving place to a suburban cottage and a life of decent toil!