him then. And if
there were ever to be a question of yielding, it would be easier
to do something towards lessening the vileness of the man now than
hereafter. He, too, had some of that knowledge of the world which had
taught Lady Altringham to say that the young people in such contests
could always beat the old people. Thinking of this, and of that look
upon his child's brows, he almost vacillated again. Any amount of
dissipation he could now have forgiven; but to be a liar, too, and a
swindler! Before he went to bed that night he had made up his mind to
go to London and to see Mr. Boltby.

CHAPTER XIV.

PERTINACITY.

On the day but one after the scene narrated in the last chapter
Sir Harry went to London, and Lady Elizabeth and Emily were left
alone together in the great house at Humblethwaite. Emily loved her
mother dearly. The proper relations of life were reversed between
them, and the younger domineered over the elder. But the love
which the daughter felt was probably the stronger on this account.
Lady Elizabeth never scolded, never snubbed, never made herself
disagreeable, was never cross; and Emily, with her strong perceptions
and keen intelligence, knew all her mother's excellence, and loved
it the better because of her mother's weakness. She preferred her
father's company, but no one could say she neglected her mother for
the sake of her father.

Hitherto she had said very little to Lady Elizabeth as to her lover.
She had, in the first place, told her mother, and then had received
from her mother, second-hand, her father's disapproval. At that time
she had only said that it was "too late." Poor Lady Elizabeth had
been able to make no useful answer to this. It certainly was too
late. The evil should have been avoided by refusing admittance to
Cousin George both in London and at Humblethwaite. It certainly was
too late;--too late, that is, to avoid the evil altogether. The girl
had been asked for her heart, and had given it. It was very much too
late. But evils such as that do admit of remedy. It is not every girl
that can marry the man whom she first confesses that she loves. Lady
Elizabeth had some idea that her child, being nobler born and of more
importance than other people's children, ought to have been allowed
by fate to do so,--as there certainly is a something withdrawn from
the delicate aroma of a first-class young woman by any transfer of
affections;--but if it might not be so, even an