Lottie’s silence, however, was not patience, neither was it any want of susceptibility to what had been said. Even this, probably, she would have felt more had her mind not been preoccupied by her great resolution. But when she found herself in the Abbey, abstracted from all external circumstances, the great voice of the organ filling the beautiful place, the people silently filling up the seats, the choir in their white robes filing in, it seemed very strange to Lottie that the service could go on as it did, undisturbed by the beats of her heart and the commotion of her thoughts. Enough trouble and tumult to drown even the music were in that one corner where she leant her shoulder against the old dark oak, finding some comfort in the physical support. And she did not, it must be allowed, pay very much attention to the service; her voice joined in the responses fitfully, but her heart wandered far away. No, not far away. Mr. Ashford’s counsel, and her father’s, kept coming and going through her mind. Truth to tell, Captain Despard’s decision against the possibility of work gave work an instant value in his daughter’s eyes. We do not defend Lottie for her undutifulness; but as most of the things she had cared for in her life had been opposed by her father, and all the things against which she set her face in fierceness of youthful virtue were supported by him, it could scarcely be expected that his verdict would be very effectual with her. It gave her a little spirit and encouragement in her newly-formed resolution, and it helped her a little to overcome the prejudice in her mind when she felt that her father was in favour of that prejudice. He did not want her to work, to bring the discredit of a daughter who earned her own living upon him; he wanted to sell her to any one who would offer for her, to make her “catch” some man, to put forth wiles to attract him and bring him into her net. Lottie, who believed in love, and who believed in womanhood, with such a faith as perhaps girls only possess: what silent rage and horror filled her at this thought! She believed in womanhood, not so much in herself. For the sake of that abstraction, not for her own, she wanted to be wooed reverently, respected above all. A man, to be a perfect man, ought to look upon every woman as a princess of romance: not for her individual sake so much as for his sake, that he might fall short of no nobleness and perfection. This was Lottie’s theory throughout. She would have Law reverence his sister, and tenderly care for her, because that would prove Law to be of the noblest kind of men. She wanted to be worshipped in order to prove triumphantly to herself that the man who did so was an heroic lover. This was how Rollo had caught her imagination, her deceived imagination, which put into Rollo’s looks and words so much that was not really there. This simple yet superlative thread of romance ran through all her thoughts. She leaned