few days, so that you and she should be down
here together. If you mean to go on with it, now is your time."
Arthur, in answer to this, merely said he would spend the Whitsuntide
holidays at Longbarns.

It is probable that Emily herself had some idea in her own mind of
what was being done to entrap her. Her brother's words to her had
been so strong, and the occasion of his marriage was itself so sacred
to her, that she had not been able to refuse his request. But from
the moment that she had made the promise, she felt that she had
greatly added to her own difficulties. That she could yield to
Arthur never occurred to her. She was certain of her own persistency.
Whatever might be the wishes of others, the fitness of things
required that Arthur Fletcher's wife should not have been the widow
of Ferdinand Lopez,--and required also that the woman who had married
Ferdinand Lopez should bear the results of her own folly. Though
since his death she had never spoken a syllable against him,--if
those passionate words be excepted which Arthur himself had drawn
from her,--still she had not refrained from acknowledging the truth
to herself. He had been a man disgraced,--and she as his wife, having
become his wife in opposition to the wishes of all her friends, was
disgraced also. Let them do what they will with her, she would not
soil Arthur Fletcher's name with this infamy. Such was still her
steadfast resolution; but she knew that it would be, not endangered,
but increased in difficulty by this visit to Herefordshire.

And then there were other troubles. "Papa," she said, "I must get a
dress for Everett's marriage."

"Why not?"

"I can't bear, after all that I have cost you, putting you to such
useless expense."

"It is not useless, and such expenses as that I can surely afford
without groaning. Do it handsomely and you will please me best."

Then she went forth and chose her dress,--a grey silk, light enough
not to throw quite a gloom on the brightness of the day, and yet dark
enough to declare that she was not as other women are. The very act
of purchasing this, almost blushing at her own request as she sat at
the counter in her widow's weeds, was a pain to her. But she had no
one whom she could employ. On such an occasion she could not ask her
aunt Harriet to act for her, as her aunt was distrusted and disliked.
And then there was the fitting on of the dress,--very grievous to
her, as it was the first time since the hea