der squeeze of his hand.

"True, if you like; hot, if you like; but I old?" cried Tracy.

"Yes, because I seem to have got to the other side of you; I mean, I
know you, and am always sure of you," said Emilia. "You don't care
for music; I don't care for poetry, but we're friends, and I am quite
certain of you, and think you 'old friend' always."

"And I," said Tracy, better up to the mark by this time, "I think of
you, you dear little woman, that I ought to be grateful to you, for, by
heaven! you give me, every time I see you, the greatest temptation to be
a fool and let me prove that I'm not. Altro! altro!"

"A fool!" said Emilia caressingly; showing that his smart insinuation
had slipped by her.

The tale of Brookfield was told over again by Tracy, and Emilia
shuddered, though Merthyr and her country held her heart and imagination
active and in suspense, from moment to moment. It helped mainly to
discolour the young world to her eyes. She was under the spell of an
excitement too keen and quick to be subdued, by the sombre terrors of
a tragedy enacted in a house that she had known. Brookfield was in the
talk of all who came to Richford. Emilia got the vision of the wretched
family seated in the library as usual, when upon midnight they were
about to part, and a knock came at the outer door, and two men entered
the hall, bearing a lifeless body with a red spot above the heart. She
saw Cornelia fall to it. She saw the pale-faced family that had given
her shelter, and moaned for lack of a way of helping them and comforting
them. She reproached herself for feeling her own full physical life so
warmly, while others whom she had loved were weeping. It was useless to
resist the tide of fresh vitality in her veins, and when her thoughts
turned to their main attraction, she was rejoicing at the great strength
she felt coming to her gradually. Her face was smooth and impassive:
this new joy of strength came on her like the flowing of a sea to a
land-locked water. "Poor souls!" she sighed for her friends, while
irrepressible exultation filled her spirit.

That afternoon, in the midst of packing and preparations for the
journey, at all of which Lady Gosstre smiled with a complacent
bewilderment, a card, bearing the name of Miss Laura Tinley, was sent up
to Emilia. She had forgotten this person, and asked Lady Gosstre who it
was. Arabella's rival presented herself most winningly. For some time,
Emilia listened to her, with wo