unbearable to her now.  Besides, she felt a secret shuddering at nameless things, which made her sick of the thought of returning to him and his Jew friends.  But, alas! he looked so miserable—­a child of harmony among the sons of discord!  He kept his head down, fiddling like a machine.  The old potatoe-days became pathetically edged with dead light to Emilia.  She could not be cruel.  “When I am safe,” she laid stress on the word in her mind, to awaken blessed images, “I will see him often, and make him happy; but I will let him know that all is well with me now, and that I love him always.”

So she said to Mr. Pole, “I know one of those in the orchestra.  May I write a word to him on a piece of paper before we go?  I wish to.”

Mr. Pole reflected, and seeing her earnest in her desire to do this, replied:  “Well, yes; if you must—­the girls are not here.”

Emilia borrowed his pencil-case, and wrote:—­

“Sandra is well, and always loves her caro papa, and is improving, and will see him soon.  Her heart is full of love for him and for her mama; and if they leave their lodgings they are to leave word where they go.  Sandra never forgets Italy, and reads the papers.  She has a copy of the score of an unknown opera by our Andronizetti, and studies it, and anatomy, English, French, and pure Italian, and can ride a horse.  She has made rich friends, who love her.  It will not be long, and you will see her.”

The hasty scrawl concluded with numerous little caressing exclamations in Italian diminutives.  This done, Emilia thought:  “But he will look up and see me!” She resolved not to send it till they were about to quit the theatre.  Consequently, Braintop, on his arrival, was told to sit down.  “You don’t look cheerful in the pit,” said Mr. Pole.  “You’re above it?—­ eh?  You’re all alike in that.  None of you do what your dads did.  Up-up-up?  You may get too high, eh?—­Gallery?” and Mr. Pole winked knowingly and laughed.

Braintop, thus elevated, tried his best to talk to Emilia, who sat half fascinated with the fear of seeing her father lift his eyes and recognize her suddenly.  She sat boldly in the front, as before; not being a young woman to hide her head where there was danger, and having perhaps a certain amount of the fatalism which is often youth’s philosophy in the affairs of life.  “If this is to be, can I avert it?”

Mr. Pole began to nod at the actors, heavily.  He said to Emilia, “If there is any fun going on, give me a nudge.”  Emilia kept her eyes on her father in the orchestra, full of pity for his deplorable wig, in which she read his later domestic history, and sad tales of the family dinners.

“Do you see one of those”—­she pointed him out to Braintop; “he is next to the leader, with his back to us.  Are you sure?  I want you to give him this note before he goes; when we go.  Will you do it?  I shall always be thankful to you.”