d that
the father should sit on the same side of the table with the lover,
so that he should see nothing of what was going on. But it seemed
to Mr. Wharton as though he had been positively swindled by his
sister-in-law. There they sat opposite to him, talking to each other
apparently with thoroughly mutual confidence, the very two persons
whom he most especially desired to keep apart. He had not a word to
say to either of the ladies near him. He endeavoured to keep his eyes
away from his daughter as much as possible, and to divert his ears
from their conversation;--but he could not but look and he could
not but listen. Not that he really heard a sentence. Emily's voice
hardly reached him, and Lopez understood the game he was playing much
too well to allow his voice to travel. And he looked as though his
position were the most commonplace in the world, and as though he had
nothing of more than ordinary interest to say to his neighbour. Mr.
Wharton, as he sat there, almost made up his mind that he would leave
his practice, give up his chambers, abandon even his club, and take
his daughter at once to--to;--it did not matter where, so that the
place should be very distant from Manchester Square. There could be
no other remedy for this evil.

Lopez, though he talked throughout the whole of dinner,--turning
sometimes indeed to Mrs. Leslie who sat at his left hand,--said very
little that all the world might not have heard. But he did say one
such word. "It has been so dreary to me, the last month!" Emily of
course had no answer to make to this. She could not tell him that
her desolation had been infinitely worse than his, and that she
had sometimes felt as though her very heart would break. "I wonder
whether it must always be like this with me," he said,--and then he
went back to the theatres, and other ordinary conversation.

"I suppose you've got to the bottom of that champagne you used
to have," said Lord Mongrober, roaring across the table to his
host, holding his glass in his hand, and with strong marks of
disapprobation on his face.

"The very same wine as we were drinking when your lordship last did
me the honour of dining here," said Dick. Lord Mongrober raised his
eyebrows, shook his head and put down the glass.

"Shall we try another bottle?" asked Mrs. Dick with solicitude.

"Oh, no;--it'd be all the same, I know. I'll just take a little dry
sherry if you have it." The man came with the decanter. "No, dry
she