"At twelve! Bless my soul, man, it is scarcely half-past ten now." CHAPTER IX. The afternoon of the same day was lowering, bleak, and drear, as a young girl, in a long black dress fitting close to her slight figure, and relieved at throat and wrists by a plaiting of white crape, entered a small sitting-room at the back of one of a row of brand-new residences in the cardboard, Tudor style, inlaid with colored bricks, and further relieved by oriel windows. The young lady carried a cup full of violets, and set it upon a table which had been moved into the window. It was crowded with materials for watercolor drawing. A very graceful design suited to a portfolio lay partly colored where the light fell strongest. The young lady, or rather Ella Rivers, stood looking at her work for a few minutes, and then sitting down, with a deep sigh, took up her brush, first bending lovingly over the violets until her face touched them. She was exceedingly pale--the pallor of thought and sorrow. Her eyes, which looked larger than they used--perhaps because she had grown thinner--had a weary, wistful expression, which gave pathos to the quiet sadness of her face and figure. The last month had tried her sorely. The sudden, fatal illness of Donald had caused her immense bodily fatigue and real sorrow. She had grown to love the afflicted, wayward boy, even more than she knew; and he could not bear her out of his sight, finally breathing his last in her arms. Then, not understanding the terms which existed between Wilton and the Fergusson family, Ella never doubted that he was aware from the first of poor Sir Peter's bereavement and the consequent removal of the family. His silence under such circumstances, the absence of any attempt to seek her out, was, to her, conclusive evidence that his sudden, violent affection for herself had passed away. Arriving at this conviction showed her how fondly, although unconsciously, she had hoped for his constancy. When Wilton astonished and agitated her by his unexpected avowal, she had most truly told him that she did not love him, that his truth or constancy was not essential to her happiness. His frank kindness, and the interest he had shown in her art and her conversation, had touched and diverted her. Feeling keenly the insurmountable barrier of caste, which her reason scornfully resented, the possibility of a man of his grade being her lover never crossed her mind. Moreover, the habits of her life accustomed her to men as companions, as friends, almost as playfellows, but never as lovers. Wilton was therefore to her at first an agreeable, intelligent, though mistaken man, blinded to the great truths of his age by his position and his profession, but who, under higher direction, might have been worthy the friendship of her father, Diego, and the rest of the exalted society who passed their lives propagating theories of political perfection and escaping the police.