advertised it to all the house if she had
had to run the gauntlet of its inhabitants; but as Dolly had played in
every dull room and passage many and many a time, when a child, and had
ever since been the humble friend of Miss Haredale, whose foster-sister
she was, she was as free of the building as the young lady herself.
So, using no greater precaution than holding her breath and walking on
tiptoe as she passed the library door, she went straight to Emma's room
as a privileged visitor.

It was the liveliest room in the building. The chamber was sombre like
the rest for the matter of that, but the presence of youth and beauty
would make a prison cheerful (saving alas! that confinement withers
them), and lend some charms of their own to the gloomiest scene. Birds,
flowers, books, drawing, music, and a hundred such graceful tokens of
feminine loves and cares, filled it with more of life and human sympathy
than the whole house besides seemed made to hold. There was heart in
the room; and who that has a heart, ever fails to recognise the silent
presence of another!

Dolly had one undoubtedly, and it was not a tough one either, though
there was a little mist of coquettishness about it, such as sometimes
surrounds that sun of life in its morning, and slightly dims its lustre.
Thus, when Emma rose to greet her, and kissing her affectionately on the
cheek, told her, in her quiet way, that she had been very unhappy, the
tears stood in Dolly's eyes, and she felt more sorry than she could
tell; but next moment she happened to raise them to the glass, and
really there was something there so exceedingly agreeable, that as she
sighed, she smiled, and felt surprisingly consoled.

'I have heard about it, miss,' said Dolly, 'and it's very sad indeed,
but when things are at the worst they are sure to mend.'

'But are you sure they are at the worst?' asked Emma with a smile.

'Why, I don't see how they can very well be more unpromising than they
are; I really don't,' said Dolly. 'And I bring something to begin with.'

'Not from Edward?'

Dolly nodded and smiled, and feeling in her pockets (there were pockets
in those days) with an affectation of not being able to find what she
wanted, which greatly enhanced her importance, at length produced
the letter. As Emma hastily broke the seal and became absorbed in its
contents, Dolly's eyes, by one of those strange accidents for which
there is no accounting, wandered to the glass again. S