‘Poor Lily!’ said Claude.  ’It is a bad prospect, but I think you see the worst side of it.  You are not well, and, therefore, doleful.  This, Lily, I can tell you, that the Baron always considered Emily’s government as a kind of experiment, and so perhaps he will not be so grievously disappointed as you expect.  Besides, I have a strong suspicion that Emily’s own nature has quite as much to do with her present conduct as your principle, which, after all, did not live very long.’

’Just long enough to unsettle me, and make it more difficult for me to get any way right,’ said Lily.  ’Oh! dear, what would I give to force backward the wheels of time!’

’But as you cannot, you had better try to brighten up your energies.  Come, you know I cannot tell you not to look back, but I can tell you not to look forward.  Nay, I do tell you literally, to look forward, out of the window, instead of back into this hot room.  Do not you think the plane-tree there looks very inviting?  Suppose we transport Emily’s drapery there, and I want to refresh my memory with Spenser; I do not think I have touched him since plane-tree time last year.’

’I believe Spenser and the plane-tree are inseparably woven together in your mind,’ said Lily.

’Yes, ever since the time when I first met with the book.  I remember well roving over the bookcase, and meeting with it, and taking it out there, for fear Eleanor should see me and tell mama.  Phyl, with As You Like It, put me much in mind of myself with that.’

Claude talked in this manner, while Lily, listening with a smile, prepared her work.  He read, and she listened.  It was such a treat as she had not enjoyed for a long time, for she had begun to think that all her pleasant reading days were past.  Her work prospered, and her face was bright when her sisters came home.

But, alas!  Emily was not pleased with her performance; she said that she intended something quite different, and by manner, rather than by words, indicated that she should not be satisfied unless Lily completely altered it.  It was to be worn at the castle the next evening, and Lily knew she should have no time for it in the course of the day.  Accordingly, at half-past twelve, as Claude was going up to bed, he saw a light under his sister’s door, and knocked to ask the cause.  Lily was still at work upon the trimming, and very angry he was, particularly when she begged him to take care not to disturb Emily.  At last, by threatening to awake her, for the express purpose of giving her a scolding, he made Lily promise to go to bed immediately, a promise which she, poor weary creature, was very glad to make.

Claude now resolved to tell his father the state of things, for he well knew that though it was easy to obtain a general promise from Emily, it was likely to be of little effect in preventing her from spurring her willing horse to death.

The next morning he rose in time to join his father in the survey which he usually took of his fields before breakfast, and immediately beginning on the subject on which he was anxious, he gave a full account of his sister’s proceedings.  ‘In short,’ said he, ’Emily and Ada torment poor Lily every hour of her life; she bears it all as a sort of penance, and how it is to end I cannot tell.’