ng this narration. But,
hearing the word of pity, she did not stop to be critical. "Can you do
nothing for them?" she said abruptly.

The thought in Laura's shocked grey eyes was, "They have done little
enough for you," i.e., toward making you a lady. "Oh!" she cried; "I can
you teach me what to do? I must be extremely delicate, and calculate upon
what they would accept from me. For--so I hear--they used to--and
may still--nourish a--what I called--silly--though not in
unkindness--hostility to our family--me. And perhaps now natural
delicacy may render it difficult for them to..."

In short, to accept an alms from Laura Tinley; so said her pleading look
for an interpretation.

"You know Mr. Pericles," said Emilia, "he can do the mischief--can he
not? Stop him."

Laura laughed. "One might almost say that you do not know him, Miss
Belloni. What is my influence? I have neither a voice, nor can I play on
any instrument. I would--indeed I will--do my best my utmost; only, how
even to introduce the subject to him? Are not you the person? He speaks
of you constantly. He has consulted doctors with regard to your voice,
and the only excuse, dear Miss Belloni, for my visit to you to-day, is my
desire that any misunderstanding between you may be cleared. Because, I
have just heard--Miss Belloni will forgive me!--the origin of it; and
tidings coming that you were in the neighbourhood, I thought--hoped that
I might be the means of re-uniting two evidently destined to be of
essential service to one another. And really, life means that, does it
not?"

Emilia was becoming more critical of this tone the more she listened. She
declared, her immediate willingness to meet Mr. Pericles. With which, and
Emilia's assurance that she would write, and herself make the
appointment, Laura retired, in high glee at the prospect of winning the
gratitude of the inscrutable millionaire. It was true that the absence of
any rivalry for the possession of the man took much of his sweetness from
him. She seemed to be plucking him from the hands of the dead, and half
recognized that victory over uncontesting rivals claps the laurel-wreath
rather rudely upon our heads.

Emilia lost no time in running straight to Georgiana, who was busy at her
writing-desk. She related what she had just heard, ending breathlessly:
"Georgey! my dear! will you help them?"

"In what possible way can I do so?" said Georgiana. To-morrow night we
shall have left England."