It was written in pencil, it was but three lines, but after she received it Lily indignantly snatched her letter from the blotting-book and flung it into the fire, which was too good an end for such a cruel production. Was it possible that she had questioned the love of him who wrote to her like _that_? Was it possible that she, so adored, so longed for, should doubt in her heart whether he did not mean to conceal her like a guilty thing? Far from her be such unkind, disloyal thoughts. Ronald had gone off into the world, as it is the man’s right and privilege and his duty to do, to provide a nest for his mate. If she were left solitary for a moment, that was inevitable: it was but the natural pause till he should have prepared for her, as every husband did. Instead of the indignation, the resentment, the bitter doubt she had felt, nothing but compunction was now in Lily’s mind. It was not he but she who was to blame. She was the unfaithful one, the weak and wavering soul who could never hold steadily to her faith, but doubted the absent as soon as his back was turned, and was worthy of nothing except to undergo the fate which her feeble affection feared. She was, perhaps, a little high-flown in the revulsion of her feelings, as in the fervor of these feelings themselves. A little less might have been expected from Ronald, a little charity extended to him in his short-coming; and certainly the vehemence and enthusiasm of her faith in him now was a little excessive. “Yes, it is better you should call me Miss Lily,” she said to Robina; “it is best just to keep it to ourselves for a while. Mr. Lumsden thought of all that, though he left it entirely to me, without a word said. There would be so many questions asked, even Dougal and Helen Blythe. I would have had to summer and winter it, and her not very quick at the uptake. It is a long time till Whit-Sunday,” said Lily, with a little quiver of her lip. “I will just be Miss Ramsay till then.” “Eh, you will aye be Miss Lily to me, whatever!” Beenie cried. “And I am just Miss Lily,” said her mistress, with a little air of dignity which was new to the girl. It was as if a princess had consented to that humiliation, sweetly, with a grace of self-abnegation which made it an honor the more.