at all fair! I have been like a ninepin set up in the
game of other people's lives, only to be knocked down again; and yet
without me the game could not have been played. Yes; I have been made
useful, for through me other people have unconsciously set him against
matrimony. If they would but have let him alone"--(Oh, Justina! how can
you help thinking now?)--"I could have managed it, if I might have had
all the game to myself."

Next to the power of standing outside one's self, and looking at _me_ as
other folks see me, the most remarkable is this of (by the insight of
genius and imagination) becoming _you_. The first makes one sometimes
only too reasonable, too humble; the second warms the heart and enriches
the soul, for it gives the charms of selfhood to beings not ourselves.

"Yet it is a happy thing for some of us," thought Emily, finishing her
cogitations in her own person, "that the others are not allowed to play
all the game themselves."

When Brandon got home John saw his wife quietly look at him. "Now what
does that mean?" he thought; "it was something more than mere observance
of his entering. Those two have means of transport for their thoughts
past the significance of words. Yes, I'm right; she goes into the
dining-room, and he will follow her. Have they found it out?"

All the guests were standing in a small morning-room, taking coffee; and
Brandon presently walking out of the French window into the garden, came
up to the dining-room outside. There was Dorothea.

"Love," she said, looking out, "what do you think? Some of these names
have been changed."

"Perhaps a waft of wind floated them off the plates," said Brandon,
climbing in over the window-ledge, "and the servants restored them
amiss. But, Mrs. Brandon, don't you think if that baby of yours squalls
again after lunch, he had better drink his own health himself somewhere
else? I say, how nice you look, love!--I like that gown."

"He must come in, St. George; but do attend to business--look!"

"Whew!" exclaimed Brandon, having inspected the plates; "it must have
been a very intelligent waft of wind that did this."

Two minutes after Brandon sauntered in again by the window, and John
Mortimer observed the door. When Mrs. Brandon entered, she saw him
standing on the rug keeping Emily in conversation. Mrs. Brandon admired
Mr. Mortimer; he was tall, fair, stately, and had just such a likeness
to Valentine as could not fail to be to his advantage