t once too. I'm off to Madras by next packet; or,
that is to say, would, if I could get my passage free."

"My noble Charles, if that were the only objection, I would get you all
the means; for the kind--kind general suffers me to have whatever sums I
choose to ask for. Only, Charles, indeed I cannot spare you; do not--do
not go away and leave me; there's Julian, too--don't leave me--and you
might never come back, and--and--" all the remainder was lost in
sobbing.

"No, my Emmy, we must not use the general's gold in doing what he might
not wish; it would be ungenerous. I will try to get somebody to lend me
what I want--say Mrs. Sainsbury, or the Tamworths. And as for leaving
you, my love, have no fears for me or for yourself; situated as we are,
I take it as a duty to go, and make you happier, setting you in rights,
whatever these may be; and for the rest, I leave you in His holy keeping
who can preserve you alike in body, as in soul, from all things that
would hurt you, and whose mercy will protect me in all perils, and bring
me back to you in safety. This is my trust, Emmy."

"Dear Charles, you are always wiser and better than I am: let it be so
then, my best of friends. Seek out good nurse Mackie, I can give you
many clues, hear what she has to say; and may the God of your own poor
fatherless Emily speed your holy mission! Yet there is one thing,
Charles; ought you not to ask your parents for their leave to go? You
are better skilled to judge than I can be, though."

"Emmy, whom have I to ask? my father? he cares not whither I go nor what
becomes of me; I hardly know him, and for twenty years of my short life
of twenty-one, scarcely believed in his existence; or should I ask my
mother? alas--love! I wish I could persuade myself that she would wish
me back again if I were gone; moreover, how can I respect her judgment,
or be guided by her counsel, whose constant aim has been to thwart my
feeble efforts after truth and wisdom, and to pamper all ill growths in
my unhappy brother Julian? No, Emily; I am a man now, and take my own
advice. If a parent forbade me, indeed, and reasonably, it would be fit
to acquiesce; but knowing, as I have sad cause to know, that none but
you, my love, will be sorry for my absence, as for your sake alone that
absence is designed, I need take counsel only of us who are here
present--your own sweet eyes, myself, and God who seeth us."

"True--most true, dear Charles; I knew that you judge