No; it was no such pleasant surprise, only a strange lady who asked to see her. She had sent up her card: "LADY VALERIA HARBOROUGH." "The lady will be greatly obliged if you will see her," said the servant. "She has come from Plymouth on purpose to see you." "Of course I will see her," answered Hilda cheerfully. "You have shown her into the drawing-room, I suppose?" "Yes, ma'am." "Take in tea as soon as you can." Hilda glanced at her glass before she left the room. Her plain cashmere gown was neat enough, and her hair was tolerably tidy, but her eyes had a heavy look, and she was very pale. "I'm afraid I don't look a joyful bride, or do Bothwell credit in any way," she said to herself. She had heard her lover speak once or twice of General Harborough as his kindest and most powerful friend in India. She had heard from Dora of the General's death, and that Bothwell had attended the funeral. And now she felt flattered exceedingly at the idea that the General's widow had taken the trouble to come to see her; no doubt from pure friendliness for her dead husband's _protégé_--deeming that there was no better compliment she could pay Mr. Grahame than to assume an interest in his betrothed. She, like Dora, took it for granted that old General Harborough's wife would be an elderly woman; and she went down to the drawing-room expecting to see a portly matron, gray-haired, bland, perhaps a little patronising in her double rank of Earl's daughter and General's widow. She was surprised beyond all measure when a tall and slender figure rose to meet her, and she found herself face to face with a young woman whose brilliant eyes and interesting countenance were more striking than commonplace beauty. CHAPTER II. LADY VALERIA FIGHTS HER OWN BATTLE. The two women stood face to face in silence for a few moments. Surprise made Hilda dumb. She gazed in unconcealed wonderment at the small pale face framed in white crape, the delicate high-bred features, refined almost to attenuation, the luminous violet eyes with their long dark lashes, eyes which alone gave life and colour to the face. Lady Valeria looked at the girl with so piercing a scrutiny that those brilliant eyes of hers seemed to burn into the face of her rival--a scathing look, measuring and appraising that modest girlish beauty, cheapening those innocent charms in scornful wonder. And this was the woman for whose sake she, Valeria, had been flung away like an old glove--this girl-face, with its candid blue eyes and babified bloom, its broad white forehead ringed round with infantile curls of golden brown, its delicately pencilled eyebrows, its coral lips, and small white teeth. "For people who admire babies the girl is well enough," thought Lady Valeria.