d be close within his reach. Many little schemes were laid and
struggles made both by herself and the others before at last their
plans were settled. Mr. Wharton was to return to London in the middle
of January. It was quite impossible that he could remain longer away
either from Stone Buildings or from the Eldon, and then at the same
time, or a day or two following, Mrs. Fletcher was to go back to
Longbarns. John Fletcher and his wife and children were already
gone,--and Arthur also had been at Longbarns. The two brothers and
Everett had been backwards and forwards. Emily was anxious to remain
at Wharton at any rate till Parliament should have met, so that she
might not be at home with Arthur in his own house. But matters would
not arrange themselves exactly as she wished. It was at last settled
that she should go to Longbarns with Mary Wharton under the charge
of John Fletcher in the first week in February. As arrangements were
already in progress for the purchase of Barnton Spinnies, Sir Alured
could not possibly leave his own house. Not to have walked through
the wood on the first day that it became a part of the Wharton
property would to him have been treason to the estate. His experience
ought to have told him that there was no chance of a lawyer and a
college dealing together with such rapidity; but in the present state
of things he could not bear to absent himself. Orders had already
been given for the cutting down of certain trees which could not have
been touched had the reprobate lived, and it was indispensable that
if a tree fell at Wharton he should see the fall. It thus came to
pass that there was a week during which Emily would be forced to live
under the roof of the Fletchers together with Arthur Fletcher.

The week came and she was absolutely received by Arthur at the door
of Longbarns. She had not been at the house since it had first been
intimated to the Fletchers that she was disposed to receive with
favour the addresses of Ferdinand Lopez. As she remembered this it
seemed to her to be an age ago since that man had induced her to
believe that of all men she had ever met he was the nearest to a
hero. She never spoke of him now, but of course her thoughts of
him were never ending,--as also of herself in that she had allowed
herself to be so deceived. She would recall to her mind with bitter
inward sobbings all those lessons of iniquity which he had striven
to teach her, and which had first opened her e