ime, my poor
child, and come and stay with me at Brighton; the sooner the better."
Emily shrank--not from accepting the invitation--but from encountering
Francine. The hard West Indian heiress looked harder than ever with
a pen in her hand. Her letter announced that she was "getting on
wretchedly with her studies (which she hated); she found the masters
appointed to instruct her ugly and disagreeable (and loathed the sight
of them); she had taken a dislike to Miss Ladd (and time only confirmed
that unfavorable impression); Brighton was always the same; the sea
was always the same; the drives were always the same. Francine felt a
presentiment that she should do something desperate, unless Emily joined
her, and made Brighton endurable behind the horrid schoolmistress's
back." Solitude in London was a privilege and a pleasure, viewed as the
alternative to such companionship as this.

Emily wrote gratefully to Miss Ladd, and asked to be excused.

Other days had passed drearily since that time; but the one day that had
brought with it Cecilia's letter set past happiness and present sorrow
together so vividly and so cruelly that Emily's courage sank. She had
forced back the tears, in her lonely home; she had gone out to seek
consolation and encouragement under the sunny sky--to find comfort for
her sore heart in the radiant summer beauty of flowers and grass, in
the sweet breathing of the air, in the happy heavenward soaring of the
birds. No! Mother Nature is stepmother to the sick at heart. Soon,
too soon, she could hardly see where she went. Again and again she
resolutely cleared her eyes, under the shelter of her veil, when passing
strangers noticed her; and again and again the tears found their way
back. Oh, if the girls at the school were to see her now--the girls
who used to say in their moments of sadness, "Let us go to Emily and be
cheered"--would they know her again? She sat down to rest and recover
herself on the nearest bench. It was unoccupied. No passing footsteps
were audible on the remote path to which she had strayed. Solitude at
home! Solitude in the Park! Where was Cecilia at that moment? In
Italy, among the lake s and mountains, happy in the company of her
light-hearted friend.

The lonely interval passed, and persons came near. Two sisters, girls
like herself, stopped to rest on the bench.

They were full of their own interests; they hardly looked at the
stranger in mourning garments. The younger siste