Terribly vexed was that sweet face, an almost painful sadness upon the generally sunny features.

“I will never give you up, Anne,” he continued, with emotion.  “I told the doctor so.  I would rather give up life.  And you know that your love is mine.”

“But my duty is theirs.  And if it came to a contest—­Oh, Percival! you know, you know which would have to give place.  Papa is so resolute in right.”

“It’s a shame that fortune should be so unequally divided!” cried the young man, resentfully.  “Here’s Edward with an income of thirty thousand a year, and I, his own brother, only a year or two younger, can’t boast a fourth part as many hundreds!”

“Oh, Val! your father left you better off than that!”

“But so much of it went, Anne,” was the gloomy answer.  “I never understood the claims that came in against me, for my part.  Edward had no debts to speak of; but then look at his allowance.”

“He was the eldest son,” she gently said.

“I know that.  I am not wishing myself in Edward’s place, or he out of it.  I heartily wish him health and a long life to wear his honours; it is no fault of his that he should be rolling in riches, and I a martyr to poverty.  Still, one can’t help feeling at odd moments, when the shoe’s pinching awfully, that the system is not altogether a just one.”

“Was that a sincere wish, Val Elster?”

Val wheeled round on Lady Maude, from whom the question came.  She had stolen up to them unperceived, and stood there in her radiant beauty, her magnificent dark eyes and her glowing cheeks set off by a little coquettish black-velvet hat.

“A sincere wish—­that my brother should live long to enjoy his honours!” echoed Val, in a surprised tone.  “Indeed it is.  I hope he will live to a green old age, and leave goodly sons to succeed him.”

Maude laughed.  A brighter hue stole into her face, a softer shade to her eyes:  she saw herself, as in a vision, the goodly mother of those goodly sons.

“Are you going to wear that?” she asked, touching the knot of ribbon in Miss Ashton’s hands with her petulant fingers.  “They are Lord Hartledon’s colours.”

“I shall wear it on Monday.  Lord Hartledon gave it to me.”

A rash avowal.  The competitors, in a sort of joke, had each given away one knot of his own colours.  Lady Maude had had three given to her; but she was looking for another worth them all—­from Lord Hartledon.  And now—­it was given, it appeared, to Anne Ashton!  For her very life she could not have helped the passionate taunt that escaped from her, not in words, but in tone: 

“To you!”

“Kissing goes by favour,” broke from the delicate lips of Val Elster, and Lady Maude could have struck him for the significant, saucy expression of his violet-blue eyes.  “Edward loves Anne better than he ever loved his sisters; and for any other love—­that’s still far enough from his heart, Maude.”