eir feeling. Of
course they had expected to see her in black,--had expected to see
her in widow's weeds. But, with her, her very face and limbs had so
adapted themselves to her crape, that she looked like a monument of
bereaved woe. Lady Wharton took the mourner up into her own room, and
there made her a little speech. "We have all wept for you," she said,
"and grieve for you still. But excessive grief is wicked, especially
in the young. We will do our best to make you happy, and hope we
shall succeed. All this about dear Everett ought to be a comfort to
you." Emily promised that she would do her best, not, however, taking
much immediate comfort from the prospects of dear Everett. Lady
Wharton certainly had never in her life spoken of dear Everett while
the wicked cousin was alive. Then Mary Wharton also made her little
speech. "Dear Emily, I will do all that I can. Pray try to believe in
me." But Everett was so much the hero of the hour, that there was not
much room for general attention to any one else.

There was very much room for triumph in regard to Everett. It had
already been ascertained that the Wharton who was now dead had had
a child,--but that the child was a daughter. Oh,--what salvation or
destruction there may be to an English gentleman in the sex of an
infant! This poor baby was now little better than a beggar brat,
unless the relatives who were utterly disregardful of its fate,
should choose, in their charity, to make some small allowance for
its maintenance. Had it by chance been a boy, Everett Wharton would
have been nobody; and the child, rescued from the iniquities of his
parents, would have been nursed in the best bedroom of Wharton Hall,
and cherished with the warmest kisses, and would have been the centre
of all the hopes of all the Whartons. But the Wharton lawyer by use
of reckless telegrams had certified himself that the infant was a
girl, and Everett was the hero of the day. He found himself to be
possessed of a thousand graces, even in his father's eyesight. It
seemed to be taken as a mark of his special good fortune that he had
not clung to any business. To have been a banker immersed in the
making of money, or even a lawyer attached to his circuit and his
court, would have lessened his fitness, or at any rate his readiness,
for the duties which he would have to perform. He would never be a
very rich man, but he would have a command of ready money, and of
course he would go into Parliament