indulgences of natural affection, which are in themselves so blameless and so sweet, and this, in her own best interests, he, her husband, her natural head and guide, was forced to deny her, too. I do not think that Lily was aware of the tenor of these reasonings. She made very little allowance for her husband; at no time had she been disposed to allow that in these matters, which were of such great importance in her life, he knew best. He had deceived her first of all, and then he had made her a reluctant accomplice in deceiving others. Nature, truth, honor, honesty, had all been from the beginning on her side, and she had thought Ronald as little wise as he was right in setting them all at defiance for the preservation of a secret which ought never to have been made a secret at all. She had endured it all when there was only herself in question, but from the moment in which there was hope of the baby Lily had felt with a leap of the heart that here was the solution of the problem, and that every thing must now be made open to the light of day. It may be supposed that when, after all this dreadful episode, she returned alone, like, yet so unlike, the Lily Ramsay who was sent to Dalrugas two years before into banishment with Robina, her maid, the whole matter was turned over and over in her mind with all those dreadful visions of past chances, steps which, if taken, might have changed every thing, which are the stings of such a review. To Lily, as she pondered, there seemed so many things she might have done. She might have resisted the marriage first of all. She might have refused to be married in secrecy, in a corner--the very minister, she had always felt sure, though he had been kind, disapproving of her all the time; but then (she excused herself) she had not foreseen that the marriage was to be kept a secret: it was only, she had understood, an expedient to secure quietness and speed without preliminaries that would have called the attention of the whole parish. And then, when she followed her own story to that time after Whit-Sunday, when she had expected her husband to secure the house, which could not, he swore, be obtained till the term, Lily now saw that she should have taken the matter into her own hand, that she should have permitted no more playing with the question, that, whether he liked it or not, she should have insisted on having some home and shelter of her own. Especially before the birth of her baby should she have insisted upon this. She clasped her hands with impatience and a sense of bitter failure as she thought it all over. She ought not to have allowed herself to be silenced or hindered. Her child should have been born in her own house, where he could have been welcomed and rejoiced over, not hidden away. She cried out in her solitude, with that clasp of her hands, that it was all her fault, her own fault, that she was responsible for the child above all,