She was not able to be quite happy, therefore, even though such a terrible burden had been lifted from her,--even though she saw the dark cloud swept away from her father’s face. Her girlish frivolity had departed from her for ever on that terrible night in her father’s study at Brighton; and there was a womanly softness, a pensive tenderness in her manner now, that made her even more bewitching than of old. Her affection for her father--always the ruling passion of her simple mind--had been intensified by that fiery ordeal through which she had so lately passed; and there was something very beautiful in the union which now existed between the father and daughter. Mr. Hillary had been surprised into confidences that made a new tie between himself and his child. He could never again entirely withheld his secrets from that tender friend and consoler. He could never again think of her as a beautiful, frivolous creature, only intended to wear expensive dresses and float about in graceful attitudes amongst the costly _bric-à-brac_ of a fashionable drawing-room. He had learned to trust his child; and poor Maude applied herself diligently to the study of the customs and dealings common in that mysterious region known to her as the City. She tried to understand her father’s position--for she was tormented by a feverish anxiety as to the repayment of Francis Tredethlyn’s twenty thousand pounds; but the complications of an Australian merchant’s trade, as affected by wars, and rumours of wars, by alterations in the rate of discount and the price of Consols, were a little beyond Miss Hillary’s comprehension, and she was fain to give up the attempt in despair, and to accept any statement which her father cared to make to her respecting the altered aspect of his affairs. There was less company at the Cedars than usual during the bleak early months of the year. Mr. Hillary worked very sedulously in the City during this time, and did not care to fill his house with frivolous young idlers or ponderous City-bred matrons and their fashionably-educated daughters. The recklessness engendered by the contemplation of inevitable ruin had given place to the careful dealing of a man who has a difficult but not impossible task allotted to him. You can scarcely expect the daughters of King Danäus to labour very arduously in the filling of those buckets which they _know_ will not hold water; but if the buckets are only thin at the bottom, and _may_ possibly carry their contents safely to the well, it is worth while to work conscientiously. Francis Tredethlyn’s twenty thousand pounds had done wonders for Lionel Hillary; but the dry-rot had been for a long time at work in that stately ship of which the merchant was captain, and the successful navigation of the vessel, amidst all the rocks and shoals and tempests of the commercial ocean, was by no means an easy duty.