en in a
strange tongue.

"Does it offend you--my going?" she faltered.

"Offend!--our concern is entirely for you," observed Cornelia.

The explanation drew out a happy sparkle from Emilia's eyes. She seized
her hand, kissed it, and cried: "I do thank you. I know I promised, but
indeed I am quite pleased to go!"

Mr. Barrett swung hurriedly round and walked some paces away with his
head downward. The ladies remained in a tolerant attitude for a minute or
so, silent. They then wheeled with one accord, and Emilia was left to
herself.

CHAPTER X

Richford was an easy drive from Brookfield, through lanes of elm and
white hawthorn.

The ladies never acted so well as when they were in the presence of a
fact which they acknowledged, but did not recognize. Albeit constrained
to admit that this was the first occasion of their ever being on their
way to the dinner-table of a person of quality, they could refuse to look
the admission in the face. A peculiar lightness of heart beset them; for
brooding ambition is richer in that first realizing step it takes,
insignificant though it seem, than in any subsequent achievement. I fear
to say that the hearts of the ladies boiled, because visages so sedate,
and voices so monotonously indifferent, would witness decidedly against
me. The common avoidance of any allusion to Richford testified to the
direction of their thoughts; and the absence of a sign of exultation may
be accepted as a proof of the magnitude of that happiness of which they
might not exhibit a feature. The effort to repress it must have cost them
horrible pain. Adela, the youngest of the three, transferred her inward
joy to the cottage children, whose staring faces from garden porch and
gate flashed by the carriage windows. "How delighted they look!" she
exclaimed more than once, and informed her sisters that a country life
was surely the next thing to Paradise. "Those children do look so happy!"
Thus did the weak one cunningly relieve herself. Arabella occupied her
mind by giving Emilia leading hints for conduct in the great house. "On
the whole, though there is no harm in your praising particular dishes, as
you do at home, it is better in society to say nothing on those subjects
until your opinion is asked: and when you speak, it should be as one who
passes the subject by. Appreciate flavours, but no dwelling on them! The
degrees of an expression of approbation, naturally enough, vary with age.
Did my insti