“For to-night--to be back to-morrow like a shadow hanging round the place. You’re a young woman and a bonnie one, and that carries every thing with a man like him. Get him away! I cannot endure it longer. Get him away!” “Mr. Blythe----” “I am saying to you get him away!” said the minister in incisive, sharp notes. And then he added: “After all, the old eyes are not so much worse than the young ones. Many thanks to you all the same.” CHAPTER XXX This agitating episode in Lily’s life was a relief to her from her own prevailing troubles. They all apologized to her for bringing her into the midst of their annoyances, but it was, in fact, nothing but an advantage. To contrast what she had herself to bear with the lot of Helen even was good for Lily. If she had but known a little sooner how long and sweetly that patient creature had waited, how many years had passed over her head, while she did her duty quietly, and neither upbraided God nor man, Lily thought it would have shamed herself into quiet, too, and prevented, perhaps, that crowning outcome of impatience which had taken place in the Manse parlor on that January night. Did she regret that January night with all its mystery, its hurry, and tumult of feeling? Oh, no! she said to herself, it would be false to Ronald to entertain such a thought; but yet how could she help feeling with a sort of yearning the comparative freedom of her position then, the absence of all complication? Lily had believed, as Ronald told her, that all complications would be swept away by this step. She would be freed, she thought, at once from her uncle’s sway, and ready to follow her husband wherever their lot might lie. Every thing would be clear before her when she was Ronald’s wife. She had thought so with certain and unfeigned faith. She might perhaps have been in that condition still, always believing, feeling that nothing was wanted but the bond that made them one, if that bond had not been woven yet. Poor Lily! She would not permit herself to say that she regretted it. Oh, no! how could she regret it? Every thing was against them for the moment, but yet she was Ronald’s, and Ronald hers, forever and ever. No man could put them asunder. At any time, in any circumstances, if the yoke became too hard for her to bear, she could go unabashed to her husband for succor. How, then, could she regret it? But Helen had waited through years and years, while Lily had grown impatient before the end of one; or perhaps it was not Lily, but Ronald, that had grown impatient. No, she could not shelter herself with that. Lily had been as little able to brave the solitude, the separation, the banishment, as he. And here stood Helen, patient, not saying a word, always bearing a brave face to the world, enduring separation, with a hundred pangs added to it, terrors for the man she loved, self-reproach, and all the exactions of life beside, which she had to meet with a cheerful countenance. How much better was