aried
for a single instant the low monotony of her voice. At the close of the
confession, Mr. Pole wore an aspect of distress. This creature's utter
unlikeness to the girls he was accustomed to, corroborated his personal
view of the case, that Wilfrid certainly could not have been serious,
and that she was deluded. But he pitied her, for he had sufficient
imagination to prevent him from despising what he did not altogether
comprehend. So, to fortify the damsel, he gave her a lecture: first, on
young men--their selfish inconsiderateness, their weakness, the wanton
lives they led, their trick of lying for any sugar-plum, and how they
laughed at their dupes. Secondly, as to the conduct consequently to
be prescribed to girls, who were weaker, frailer, by disposition more
confiding, and who must believe nothing but what they heard their elders
say.

Emilia gave patient heed to the lecture.

"But I am safe," she remarked, when he had finished; "for my lover is
not as those young men are."

To speak at all, and arrange his ideas, was a vexation to the poor
merchant. He was here like an irritable traveller, who knocks at a
gate, which makes as if it opens, without letting him in. Emilia's naive
confidence he read as stupidity. It brought on a fresh access of the
nervous fever lurking in him, and he cried, jumping from his
seat: "Well, you can't have him, and there's an end. You must give
up--confound! why! do you expect to have everything you want at
starting? There, my child--but, upon my honour! a man loses his temper
at having to talk for an hour or so, and no result. You must go to bed;
and--do you say your prayers? Well! that's one way of getting out of
it--pray that you may forget all about what's not good for you. Why,
you're almost like a young man, when you set your mind on a thing.
Bad! won't do! Say your prayers regularly. And, please, pour me out a
mouthful of brandy. My hand trembles--I don't know what's the matter
with it;--just like those rushes on the Thames I used to see when out
fishing. No wind, and yet there they shake away. I wish it was daylight
on the old river now! It's night, and no mistake. I feel as if I had a
fellow twirling a stick over my head. The rascal's been at it for the
last month. There, stop where you are, my dear. Don't begin to dance!"

He pressed at his misty eyes, half under the impression that she was
taking a succession of dazzling leaps in air. Terror of an impending
blow, which