gravely, "Come, come!"

"What do you mean?" asked Emilia. "I like so many things in him."

"You don't like one thing chiefly?"

"I like--what do I like?--his kindness."

"His kindness!" This was the sort of reply to make the lady implacable.
She seldom read others shrewdly, and could not know, that near her,
Emilia thought of Wilfrid in a way that made the vault of her brain seem
to echo with jarred chords. "His kindness! What a picture is the
'grateful girl!' I have seen rows of white-capped charity children giving
a bob and a sniffle as the parson went down the ranks promising buns.
Well! his kindness! You are right in appreciating as much as you can see.
I'll tell you why I like him;--because he is a gentleman. And you haven't
got an idea how rare that animal is. Dear me! Should I be plainer to you
if I called him a Christian gentleman? It's the cant of a detestable
school, my child. It means just this--but why should I disturb your
future faith in it? The professors mainly profess to be 'a comfort to
young women,' and I suppose you will meet your comfort, and worship them
with the 'growing mind;' and I must confess that they bait it rather
cunningly; nothing else would bite. They catch almost all the raw boys
who have anything in them. But for me, Merthyr himself would have been
caught long ago. There's no absolute harm in them, only that they're a
sentimental compromise. I deny their honesty; and if it's flatly proved,
I deny their intelligence. Well! this you can't understand."

"I have not understood you at all," said Emilia.

"No? It's the tongue that's the natural traitor to a woman, and takes
longer runs with every added year. I suppose you know that Mr. Powys
wishes to send you to Italy?"

"I do," said Emilia.

"When are you going?"

"I am not going?"

"Why?"

Emilia's bosom rose. She cried "Dear lady!" on the fall of it, and was
scarce audible--adding, "Do you love Wilfrid?"

"Well, you have brought me to the point quickly," Lady Charlotte
remarked. "I don't commonly beat the bush long myself. Love him! You
might as well ask me my age. The indiscretion would be equal, and the
result the same. Love! I have a proper fear of the word. When two play at
love they spoil the game. It's enough that he says he loves me."

Emilia looked relieved. "Poor lady!" she sighed.

"Poor!" Lady Charlotte echoed, with curious eyes fixed on the puzzle
beside her.

"Tell me you will not believe him," Emilia con