Oh, my pretty Constance, I cannot write!  I shall send off this miserable scrap, and write again very soon.

Your poor fool,
Emilia.

LETTER XXI.

December 18th.

Thank Heaven that you are here, in the world; I should die if you were not.  Let me think, where shall I begin?  At the end; that is nearest.  I have only just come upstairs; I have been shaking in the dark.  They are beasts; I hate them all.  I was sitting playing cribbage with grandmamma after supper, when Uncle George was announced.  He wanted to speak to me, he said.  I took him into the breakfast room, and there he told me in a fat pompous voice that I—­O Dio, my blood still burns to think of it, and the way in which he said it—­that I was getting myself talked about in the neighbourhood; that probably I didn’t know, owing to my foreign education, that it wasn’t the thing here in England to let oneself be seen constantly alone in the company of a young man; that he thought it his duty, etc., etc.

“Thank you,” said I,—­my very skin felt tight,—­“I see that I must be more underhand in my actions, and contrive to see my friends entirely on the sly.”

“Excuse me, my dear niece,” interrupted Uncle George, “but I feel it my duty to fill a father’s place by you.  It isn’t as if you could possibly marry this young Norton; he hasn’t a penny; and as it is now some time since first the rumour of your very careless behaviour reached my ears, I have been able to make full inquiries into the matter.  His antecedents, to say no more—­”

Constance, did you ever hear of such infamy.  I believe I grew perfectly green; Heaven knows what I said, but you have seen me lose my temper once!  When I mastered myself, Uncle George was standing by the door, looking considerably startled; I was on a chair, shaking from head to foot.  After a moment’s silence I said: 

“I beg your pardon for losing my self-control as I did just now; I am very sorry, but you have done me a great wrong.  I know you meant it for the best; so we will say no more about it.  I only hope that you will leave me and my friends alone in future.  I am twenty-six and my own mistress, and I care for my good name every whit as much as you do.”

Then he left me, and I came upstairs.

So now they have done it!  They have touched my paradise with their dirty fingers.  O Constance! how is it to be borne?  My one comfort is that Gabriel knows nobody, hears nothing; if such talk were to reach his ears, I should kill myself.

Yet perhaps it is just as well that this blow has come to me.  It has given me the shock I needed.  I have made up my mind to keep away from Gabriel as long as I can; it is best so.  Christmas charities, etc., will serve as a sufficient excuse.