who had been kind to her.'

'I wish Theresa had known this,' said Emma.

'Now YOU know it, will you not turn to Violet for advice and comfort?
I know what she can be. If you could guess what she saved me from, you
would fly at once to her.'

'I cannot begin now, I cannot look anywhere that recalls past
happiness!' said Emma, murmuring low, as though the words, in spite of
herself, broke from her oppressed heart. 'Would that I could hide my
head! Oh! that I had wings like a dove!'

'Emma, you have them. They may carry you into what seems to be a
wilderness, but go bravely on, and you will be at rest at last.'

'What do you mean?'

'The wings of duty.'

'If I only knew where it was.'

'Your mother, your dependants, your orphans, your beautiful old plan.

Emma only groaned, and held up her hand in deprecation.

'I have felt it,' continued Theodora. 'I know how vain, and vapid, and
weary everything seems, as if the sap of life was gone, but if we are
content to remain in the wilderness, it begins to blossom at last,
indeed it does.'

'I thought you had had no troubles,' said Emma, with more interest.
'They could not have been such as mine.'

'In one respect they were worse, for they were entirely my own fault.'

'May I ask, is there no hope for you?'

'No, said Theodora, 'I believe there is none. But a certain peaceful
feeling, independent of that, came after the desolateness, and has never
gone utterly away, though I have had to reap the harvest of the evil
that I sowed. Oh! depend upon it, there is nothing like resolutely
facing the day's work.'

Emma made no answer; they had come to the gate of a villa, and Theodora
thought she might as well have held her peace, since Theresa would undo
the whole.

Miss Marstone was not within, but she had left a note for Miss Brandon.
Emma, after reading it, timidly said that Theresa had gone to spend the
day with a friend, who was boarding in a convent not far off, and that
she wished her to come and make her visit to her there. Then timidly
glancing towards her companion, she desired to be driven thither, but
Theodora, leaning forward, said, in an authoritative manner, 'Drive on
two miles on the road. We will say where next when we come back.'

'I beg your pardon,' she said to Emma, 'but this is not a step to be
taken inconsiderately.'

Emma did not reply; Theodora perceived that her decided manner had
terrified her. 'I am sorry if I was rude,' she said; 'I did