ng how
hungry she used to be in the evenings of the potatoe-days.

"Yes, but he might laugh, all the same." And Mr. Pole gave Emilia the
sound advice: "Mind you never marry a fellow who can't laugh."

Braintop saw Emilia smile. Then, in an instant, her face changed its
expression to one of wonder and alarm, and her hands clasped together
tightly. What on earth was the matter with her? His agitated fancy,
centred in himself, now decided that some manifestation of most shocking
absurdity had settled on his forehead, or his hair, for he was certain
of his neck-tie. Braintop had recourse to his pocket-mirror once more.
It afforded him a rapid interchange of glances with a face which he at
all events could distinguish from the mass, though we need not.

The youth was in the act of conveying the instrument to its retreat,
when conscience sent his eyes toward Emilia, who, to his horror,
beckoned to him, and touched Mr. Pole, entreating him to do the same.
Mr. Pole gesticulated imperiously, whereat Braintop rose, and requested
his neighbour to keep his seat for ten minutes, as he was going into
that particular box; and "If I don't come back in ten minutes, I shall
stop there," said Braintop, a little grandly, through the confusion of
his ideas, as he guessed at the possible reasons for the summons.

Emilia had seen her father in the orchestra. There he sat, under the
leader, sullenly fiddling the prelude to the second play, like a man
ashamed, and one of the beaten in this world. Flight had been her first
thought. She had cause to dread him. The more she lived and the dawning
knowledge of what it is to be a woman in the world grew with her, the
more she shrank from his guidance, and from reliance on him. Not that
she conceived him designedly base; but he outraged her now conscious
delicacy, and what she had to endure as a girl seemed unbearable to her
now. Besides, she felt a secret shuddering at nameless things, which
made her sick of the thought of returning to him and his Jew friends.
But, alas! he looked so miserable--a child of harmony among the sons
of discord! He kept his head down, fiddling like a machine. The old
potatoe-days became pathetically edged with dead light to Emilia. She
could not be cruel. "When I am safe," she laid stress on the word in
her mind, to awaken blessed images, "I will see him often, and make him
happy; but I will let him know that all is well with me now, and that I
love him always."

So s