ilia he had discovered a pearl of song rarely to be found, and his
object was to polish and perfect her at all cost: perhaps, as a secondary
and far removed consideration, to point to her as a thing belonging to
him, for which Emperors might envy him. The thought of losing her drove
him into fits of rage. He took the ladies one by one, and treated them
each to a horrible scene of gesticulation and outraged English. H accused
their brother of conduct which they were obliged to throw (by a process
of their own) into the region of Fine Shades, before they dared venture
to comprehend him. Gross facts in relationship with the voice, this
grievous "machine, not man,"--as they said--stated to them, harshly,
impetuously. The ladies felt that he had bored their ears with hot iron
pins. Adela tried laughter as a defence from his suggestion against
Wilfrid, but had shortly afterwards to fly from the fearful anatomist.
She served her brother thoroughly in the Council of Three; so that Mr.
Pericles was led by them to trust that there had; been mere fooling in
his absence, and that the emotions he looked to as the triumphant reserve
in Emilia's bosom, to be aroused at some crisis when she was before the
world, slumbered still. She, on her part, contrasting her own burning
sensations with this quaint, innocent devotion to Art and passion for
music, felt in a manner guilty; and whenever he stormed with additional
violence, she became suppliant, and seemed to bend and have regrets. Mr.
Pericles would then say, with mollified irritability: "You will come to
Italy to-morrow?--Ze day after?--not at all?" The last was given with a
roar, for lack of her immediate response. Emilia would find a tear on her
eyelids at times. Surround herself as she might with her illusions, she
had no resting-place in Wilfrid's heart, and knew it. She knew it as the
young know that they are to die on a future day, without feeling the
sadness of it, but with a dimly prevalent idea that this life is
therefore incomplete. And again her blood, as with a wave of rich
emotion, washed out the blank spot. She thought: "What can he want but my
love?" And thus she satisfied her own hungry questioning by seeming to
supply an answer to his.

The ladies of Brookfield by no means encouraged Emilia to refuse the
generous offer of Mr. Pericles. They thought, too, that she might--might
she? Oh! certainly she might go to Italy under his protection. "Would you
let one of your bloo