but would never give the tones again.  Sometimes, if hope tormented her, she would strangle it by trying her voice:  and such a little piece of self-inflicted anguish speedily undid all Merthyr’s work.  He was patient as one who tends a flower in the Spring.  Georgiana marvelled that the most sensitive and proud of men should be striving to uproot an image from the heart of a simple girl, that he might place his own there.  His methods almost led her to think that his estimate of human nature was falling low.  Nevertheless, she was constrained to admit that there was no diminution of his love for her, and it chastened her to think so.  “Would it be the same with me, if I—?” she half framed the sentence, blushing remorsefully while she denied that anything could change her great love for her brother.  She had caught a glimpse of Wilfrid’s suppleness and selfishness.  Contrasting him with Merthyr, she was singularly smitten with shame, she knew not why.

The anticipation of the ball at Penarvon Castle had kindled very little curiosity in Emilia’s bosom.  She seemed to herself a machine; “one of the rest;” and looked more to see that she was still coveted by Merthyr’s eyes than at the glitter of the humming saloons.  A touch of her old gladness made her smile when Captain Gambier unexpectedly appeared and walked across the dancers to sit beside her.  She asked him why he had come from London:  to which he replied, with a most expressive gaze under her eyelids, that he had come for one object.  “To see me?” thought Emilia, wondering, and reddening as she ceased to wonder.  She had thought as a child, and the neat instant felt as a woman.  He finished Merthyr’s work for him.  Emilia now thought:  “Then I must be worth something.”  And with “I am,” she ended her meditation, glowing.  He might have said that she had all beauty ever showered upon woman:  she would have been led to believe him at that moment of her revival.

Now, Lady Charlotte had written to Georgiana, telling her that Captain Gambier was soon to be expected in her neighbourhood, and adding that it would be as well if she looked closely after her charge.  When Georgiana saw him go over to Emilia she did not remember this warning:  but when she perceived the sudden brilliancy and softness in Emilia’s face after the first words had fallen on her ears, she grew alarmed, knowing his reputation, and executed some diversions, which separated them.  The captain made no effort to perplex her tactics, merely saying that he should call in a day or two.  Merthyr took to himself all the credit of the visible bloom that had come upon Emilia, and pacing with her between the dances, said:  “Now you will come to Italy, I think.”

She paused before answering, “Now?” and feverishly continued:  “Yes; at once.  I will go.  I have almost felt my voice again to-night.”

“That’s well.  I shall write to Marini to-morrow.  You will soon find your voice if you will not fret for it.  Touch Italy!”