dies as well as gentlemen, had entered the room
since dinner, dropping in for the evening conversation; and amongst the
gentlemen, I may incidentally observe, I had already noticed by
glimpses, a severe, dark, professorial outline, hovering aloof in an
inner saloon, seen only in vista. M. Emanuel knew many of the gentlemen
present, but I think was a stranger to most of the ladies, excepting
myself; in looking towards the hearth, he could not but see me, and
naturally made a movement to approach; seeing, however, Dr. Bretton
also, he changed his mind and held back. If that had been all, there
would have been no cause for quarrel; but not satisfied with holding
back, he puckered up his eyebrows, protruded his lip, and looked so
ugly that I averted my eyes from the displeasing spectacle. M. Joseph
Emanuel had arrived, as well as his austere brother, and at this very
moment was relieving Ginevra at the piano. What a master-touch
succeeded her school-girl jingle! In what grand, grateful tones the
instrument acknowledged the hand of the true artist!

"Lucy," began Dr. Bretton, breaking silence and smiling, as Ginevra
glided before him, casting a glance as she passed by, "Miss Fanshawe is
certainly a fine girl."

Of course I assented.

"Is there," he pursued, "another in the room as lovely?"

"I think there is not another as handsome."

"I agree with you, Lucy: you and I do often agree in opinion, in taste,
I think; or at least in judgment."

"Do we?" I said, somewhat doubtfully.

"I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl--my mother's
god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:
our opinions would have melted into each other."

He had assumed a bantering air: a light, half-caressing, half-ironic,
shone aslant in his eye. Ah, Graham! I have given more than one
solitary moment to thoughts and calculations of your estimate of Lucy
Snowe: was it always kind or just? Had Lucy been intrinsically the same
but possessing the additional advantages of wealth and station, would
your manner to her, your value for her, have been quite what they
actually were? And yet by these questions I would not seriously infer
blame. No; you might sadden and trouble me sometimes; but then mine was
a soon-depressed, an easily-deranged temperament--it fell if a cloud
crossed the sun. Perhaps before the eye of severe equity I should stand
more at fault than you.

Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonab