As she entered her room, the sight of her writing-table reminded her of the essay she had meant to finish on the morrow. Would it ever be finished now? Oh, she wished she had not gone to Wyndham! The thought of her uncle's kindness in giving her the beautiful horse grew bitter to her. Since he had done so much to give her pleasure, had he not a right to expect that she would do as he desired?
Yes; in her secret heart, Aldyth knew that she could not adhere to her resolve and defy her uncle's anger. She knew it, but it came home to her forcibly as she glanced at her mother's portrait. It was her mother's wish that she should please her uncle. This was the most severe test to which Aldyth's love for the mother she did not know had ever been put. Her lips quivered as she looked at the beautiful face, and the tears which had been slowly gathering, began to fall fast. Ah, she was learning something now of the inexorable demands of duty! She turned away, sobbing to herself—"If only I could tell her all about it, if we could talk it over together! She would understand; she would help me."
But Aldyth needed no further incentive. Her love had stood the test. The voice of duty had not spoken in vain.
She came down to breakfast the next morning looking languid and heavy-eyed. "Auntie," she said, directly they had greeted each other, "I spoke too hastily last night. I was angry, but it is of no use to be angry; I shall have to submit. Mother would not like me to do anything that would vex uncle."
"No, she would not," said Miss Lorraine. "She thinks it of great importance that you should keep in favour with your uncle. You are acting in the way she would wish; but I am very sorry for you, my dear child. I know it is a great disappointment."
Aldyth was silent. She did not care to talk about the disappointment. What to many girls would have been but a trifling sacrifice of inclination, was to her, with her keen intellectual tastes, a very great loss.
"I suppose uncle would like me to give up the lectures also," said Miss Lorraine, with a little laugh; "but happily he did not suggest such a thing, for I am too deeply committed to the undertaking to abandon it now. I expect he owes me a grudge for starting the idea."
"I think you may attend them with safety," said Aldyth, making an effort to speak lightly. "There is little fear that the study of poetry will unfit you for practical life, render you incapable of making a pudding, for instance, if cook should fall ill."
Miss Lorraine laughed. "Men attach great importance to cookery," she said. "Perhaps if Mr. Glynne were lecturing on that subject, uncle would not object to your attending the lectures."
An hour later Kitty and Hilda Bland came in.